Donald Trump Says No to Rematch With Megyn Kelly, Pulls Out of Upcoming Fox News Debate

GOP frontrunner has a pattern of threatening to boycott primary debates, but his campaign made the announcement Tuesday

Fox News is down a debater.

Donald Trump has threatened to skip no less than three other debates since the process got underway last summer, but today his campaign told reporters that the GOP front-runner would indeed be skipping the Fox News and Google-hosted debate scheduled for Thursday in Iowa.

"Mr. Trump will not be participating in the Fox debate," Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandoski told NBC News. "It is not under negotiation."

Trump previously said while campaigning in Iowa that he "probably" wouldn't be attending what will be the seventh Republican primary debate, but he had pondered boycotts before.

Trump had voiced his displeasure that Megyn Kelly would be moderating along with Bret Baier and Chris Wallace, making for a rematch of sorts between Trump and Kelly, who got his goat during the first of the GOP primary debates when she pointedly asked him about his record of making disrespectful comments about women.

The billionaire real estate tycoon later accused Kelly of being unprofessional and disrespectful, while simultaneously being disrespectful by suggesting that she seemed to be on her period during the event. (He denied meaning that, but it's become the eventual consensus.)

"Megyn Kelly is an excellent journalist, and the entire network stands behind her. She will absolutely be on the debate stage on Thursday night," Fox News Channel President Roger Ailes promised the Washington Post earlier today. Meanwhile, Trump said at a press conference in response to Fox's press statements touting the match-up, "They're dealing with someone who's a little bit different. They can't toy with me like they toy with everybody else."

"Pathetic attempt by @foxnews to try and build up ratings for the #GOPDebate. Without me they'd have no ratings!" he tweeted this afternoon.

Minutes after Trump's decision to skip the debate was made known, speculation started raging on Twitter as to which of his fellow candidates would benefit the most from his absence. And then, of course, the Twitterverse got creative...

Lewandoski also told NBC that Trump was considering holding a fundraising event for Wounded Warriors on a competing network at the same time the debate was airing.

Pulling a Bieber, you might call it.

Thursday's showdown is the last primary debate before the Iowa Caucus on Feb. 1. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll has Trump leading the field for the Republican nomination with 37 percent of the vote to Sen. Ted Cruz's 21 percent, while the Quinnipiac poll has Trump with a slight edge of Cruz in Iowa, 31 percent to 29 percent.