Who Won the Trump–Fox News Debate Showdown?
Donald Trump pretends to box ... let's say Roger Ailes. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/2016 Bloomberg Finance LP After completely transforming the 2016 GOP primary, on Thursday night Donald Trump pulled off the season's most dramatic showdown so far simply by refusing to show up for an event. Everyone agreed that Trump's competing rally was boring, but perhaps that wasn't the performance we were meant to focus on. As The New York Times' Frank Bruni noted, Trump's absence was the "most compelling presence" on the Fox News debate stage. "Trump was remembered. Trump was invoked," Bruni said. "His ghost was there, because he’d reshaped his Republican rivals’ images, reconfigured the challenges in front of them, rewritten the rules of this extraordinary race."