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Fox's O'Reilly pleads with Trump to reconsider debate boycott

'I submit to you that you need to change and get away from the personal,' O'Reilly tells the real estate mogul in a testy interview. 

By Eliza Collins and Kyle Cheney

Donald Trump on Wednesday night testily tangled with Bill O’Reilly as the Fox News host asked Trump to reconsider his decision to boycott the Thursday night GOP debate. The real estate mogul and Republican poll leader refused to budge.

“I want you to consider,” O’Reilly pleaded with Trump, asking him to say, “I might come back, forgive, go forward, answer the question, look out for the folks, just consider it.”

Trump shot back that the question was out of bounds. “We had an agreement that you wouldn’t ask me that,” he said.

O’Reilly conceded that Trump was telling the truth, and gave him credit for coming on his show, but said the American people need to hear from the man who has a good chance of becoming the Republican nominee.

“You could absolutely secure this Republican nomination,” the Fox News host said. “I submit to you that you need to change and get away from the personal.”

But O’Reilly peppered his words of encouragement with insults, accusing Trump of “walking away” and getting sidetracked by petty disputes.

“I don’t like being taken advantage of,” Trump said, referencing his grievance with Fox’s refusal to remove Megyn Kelly as a moderator from the debate, after Trump accused her of being biased against him. “I’m not going to let our country be taken advantage of,” Trump added, citing the Iran deal as a prime example.

Trump is so far defying skeptics who are dismissing his declaration that he will boycott Thursday night’s debate as a mere bluff, as he forges ahead with an alternate plan to raise funds for veterans that threatens to soak up media attention in the days before the Iowa caucuses.

The real estate mogul, still steaming from his feud with Fox News and Kelly, refused to heed O’Reilly’s advice to “turn the other cheek,” saying “it’s called an eye for an eye.”

Speaking at a South Carolina rally that occurred before the O’Reilly appearance aired, but after it was taped, Trump called it a “tough interview” but promised that his rival event in Des Moines raising funds for veterans would be a great one.

“We’re going to raise a lot of money for the vets,” said a boisterous Trump, donning his signature red “Make America Great Again” cap.

Trump’s staying of the course comes after speculation grew on Wednesday about whether he was really going to sit out the primetime showdown, or if it was all a bunch of bluster.

Doubters, including some of his rivals, saw either a shrewd maneuver that directed an inordinate amount of media attention on him as the GOP field tried to make their closing arguments to caucus-goers, or a clever gimmick that allowed Trump to avoid harsh questioning as he’s come under increased fire for his shifting position on issues such as abortion.

"I've got a $20 bet he shows up," Jeb Bush said during a town hall in Des Moines Wednesday afternoon.

"I expect to see Trump on stage tomorrow," tweeted John Kasich's campaign manager, John Weaver.

“Donald Trump will be at the debate,” Ted Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler Tyler predicted. “Mark my words.”

Even Kelly, the Fox debate moderator who is the focus of Trump’s ire, called him out. “I will be surprised if he doesn’t show up, Donald Trump is a showman, he’s very good at generating interest, perhaps this is an effort to generate interest in our debate, if it is that is great, maybe we will have more eyeballs, if he doesn’t show up maybe we will have fewer eyeballs, but either way it is going to be ok,” Kelly told “Extra.”

Trump’s decision to once again wage war on Fox and Kelly so close to the Iowa caucuses is either a shrewd one or a boneheaded one, depending on who you ask. While some are contending that Trump risks coming off as a coward walking away from a fight, it’s undeniable that he’s robbing the media oxygen from his rivals.

Trump earlier on Wednesday showed no outward signs of relenting, citing a bitter relationship with Fox News and Kelly. The real estate mogul also sent out to the media a few scant details about his rival event for Thursday evening – a "Donald J. Trump Special Event to Benefit Veterans Organizations" at Drake University in Des Moines.

But there were a few indications that he might soften his stance: A Twitter poll he posted asking whether he should participate in the debate urged him to appear, with 56 percent of the 157,864 votes saying he should do the debate.

Then, on Wednesday afternoon, he revealed that he still planned to appear Wednesday night on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News program.

Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told CNN Wednesday evening that his boss was still appearing on the show because “when we make a promise, we keep it,” except for when Trump is treated unfairly. He also said he has had no conversations with Fox News CEO, and that, to the best of his knowledge, neither has Trump.

The tiff apparently started after Trump tried to pressure Fox News to boot Kelly as one of the moderators, claiming there was no way she could be unbiased. Kelly gained heightened notoriety after pointedly asking Trump at the first debate about his supposed “war on women.” (O’Reilly on Wednesday night defended the question as “within journalistic bounds.”)

But Fox refused to give in, issuing a biting press statement on Tuesday saying, “We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.”

Fox doubled down after Trump’s declaration of a boycott, issuing a statement Tuesday night that accused Lewandowski of threatening the network with "terrorizations" of Kelly.

“In a call on Saturday with a Fox News executive, Lewandowski stated that Megyn had a ‘rough couple of days after that last debate’ and he ‘would hate to have her go through that again,’” the network alleged.

The Republican National Committee took an above-the-fray position on the developing drama on Wednesday afternoon, noting that Rand Paul, too, opted to skip a debate -- the undercard debate earlier this month.

“We’d love all candidates in," said Sean Spicer, the RNC's communications director, in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday afternoon. "I think it’s a great opportunity for the American people, and particularly the people in Iowa, to have an understanding of each of these candidates’ vision. But, Wolf, at the end of the day, each campaign has to make up their own mind as to what’s in their best interest so we respect that decision."

Spicer added that he anticipates Fox will not show Trump's empty lecturn on screen.

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, meanwhile, sided with Trump on the dispute. "Fox News was acting like they had been jilted at the altar," Limbaugh said on Wednesday.

Nobody since the Kennedy family has had such an outsize influence on the media, Limbaugh mused to listeners. And the Kennedys "are pikers compared to the way Trump is doing this," he added.

"Screw the rules, he's saying," Limbaugh remarked, according to a transcript, talking through Trump's reasoning. "Why should I willingly give them another shot at me in a circumstance they control, why should I do it? What's the sense in it for me? I'm leading; I'm running the pack here; why in the world should I put myself in that circumstance? I've already seen what's gonna happen."

Trump on Wednesday morning slammed Fox for its allegations against him, saying on Twitter, “The statement put out yesterday by @FoxNews was a disgrace to good broadcasting and journalism. Who would ever say something so nasty & dumb.”

He also lobbed an attack on Kelly, tweeting, “I refuse to call Megyn Kelly a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct. Instead I will only call her a lightweight reporter!”

Lewandowski himself dismissed Fox as being an unfair broker and tried to dispel the notion that Trump is worried that a final debate before the caucuses could expose weaknesses in his candidacy.

Trump is "the best debater on the debate stage, we know this, he’s the clear winner, he has been by every debate poll that’s taken place,” he said on “Morning Joe.”

"He’s not afraid to debate. I want to be very clear about this," he said. "He’s done more television, more radio, than all of the other candidates combined. And so, he’s not afraid to answer questions. He’s on your show all the time, he was on yesterday. But the bottom line is, you have people that aren’t going to be fair and ask questions the American people want to talk about, and instead they want to make this about themselves. And that’s what this is about, and it’s a shame.”

Asked about Cruz's call for a one-on-one debate before Monday's caucuses in Iowa, Lewandowski said the Texas senator's campaign was not the only one to reach out asking whether it could participate in the alternate event Trump’s campaign was setting up.

“Well, look, he’s not the only one. We’ve had calls from many debates, from many of the candidates now, to say look, why would we participate in the Fox debate as well? I think what you’re finding out, once again, you have the candidates reacting to the only true leader in this race, which is Donald Trump," Lewandowski claimed.

One veterans group signaled it has no interest in partnering with Trump for his counterprogramming event. Paul Rieckhoff, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, tweeted that Trump shouldn't be rewarded for his antics.

"If offered, @iava will decline donations from Trump's event," he wrote. "We need strong policies from candidates, not to be used for political stunts."

The Wounded Warrior Project said in an email to POLITICO on Wednesday afternoon, "We are not aware of any fundraising efforts on our behalf with Mr. Donald Trump."

It’s not clear how a resolution would be brokered between Trump and Fox, and Lewandowski kept up the war of words on Wednesday evening, telling CNN it was a pretty simple decision for Trump to boycott the debate.

“It's very simple: he's able and willing to debate but he's not going to do it if the network is not going to be fair,” he said.