Skip Monday's debate

Trump says he will skip Monday's Fox News debate

'I think it's enough,' Trump says about the primetime debates.

By Eliza Collins

Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he will not participate in Monday's Fox News debate, and will instead speak at a conference of the pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC.

The Republican frontrunner was asked on "Fox & Friends" whether he planned to attend the debate in Utah, and said he couldn't because he made other plans.

“Nobody told me about debates. As you saw I thought the last debate on CNN was the last debate," Trump said on Wednesday morning.

“I’m doing a major speech in front of a very important group of people that night," Trump said, adding that it had been "scheduled a while ago."

"I think it's enough," he added, about the dozen debates the Republican candidates have participated in so far.

Trump's comments come after he scored a big win on Florida on Tuesday night, knocking Marco Rubio out of the race. But he failed to clinch Ohio, potentially setting the GOP on the path for a brokered convention, with Ted Cruz and John Kasich still vying for the nomination.

The real estate mogul has been flirting for days with skipping the upcoming debate, which the Republican National Committee had set on Feb. 20. Trump had called last Thursday's debate hosted by CNN "a really nice way to finish off the debate season" and said he was not aware of other upcoming showdowns.

While it's not clear if Trump can reach the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination, he has called on the GOP to unite behind him so that he can take on Hillary Clinton in the general election.

This wouldn't be the first time Trump has skipped a debate. He boycotted the Fox News showdown in Iowa in January, following a feud with Fox News host Megyn Kelly, and subsequently lost the state to Cruz. Trump later said that skipping the debate could have cost him the win.