Real-estate magnate Donald Trump on Friday slammed Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann as lacking “loyalty” for first saying she would consider him as her running mate and then refusing to participate in a debate moderated by Trump.
The flamboyant host of the Apprentice reality show made his comments after calling in to radio host Don Imus’s show, which airs on the Fox Business Network. Asked by Imus about candidates including Bachmann who’ve declined invitations to the debate, Trump said: “You know who I’m very disappointed in? Michele Bachmann. She’s come up to see me four times. Four times. She’d call me, she’d ask me for advice, she said I should be her vice presidential, you know, if she wins, she’d like to think about me for the vice presidency, all of these things. And then after all of that, she announced she’s not going to do the debate. It’s unbelievable. You know, it’s called loyalty. It’s actually called loyalty. How do you do that? I mean, it’s amazing to me."
Five Republican candidates, including the Minnesota congresswoman, have declined to participate in the Dec. 27 event, hosted by Newsmax and scheduled just days before the first-in-the-nation caucuses in Iowa. Only former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania have agreed to participate.
Trump said on the Imus program that the candidates have expressed concerns about him moderating the debate while also holding out the possibility he himself will get into the race as an independent.
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