ABC News has left its partnership with the New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper for the Feb. 6 Republican debate, and front-runner Donald Trump is taking credit for the move, Politico reports.
The state’s largest newspaper had been set to have a co-branding deal with ABC, though its role was going to be limited and no representative of the paper was to have been onstage asking questions, according to Politico.
“I am pleased to announce that I had the Union Leader removed,” Trump tweeted Sunday afternoon, shortly after ABC confirmed that it had “parted ways” with the Union Leader for the February 6 event.
The debate was always supposed to be led by ABC, and it will go on as planned. But Trump’s claim highlights the complicated dynamics between the debate hosts and the debaters themselves.
The Union Leader’s editorial page has been sharply critical of Trump for months, and Trump has returned fire. Furthermore, the newspaper has endorsed Chris Christie in the GOP primary, which Trump pointed out on Sunday.
“If their highly unethical behavior, including begging me for ads, isn’t questionable enough, they have endorsed a candidate who can’t win,” he said in a series of tweets.
“This is really unfair and a conflict for all the other candidates,” Trump tweeted. “I said it should not be allowed and ABC agreed.”
“We will get over being ‘severed” Union Leader publisher Joseph McQuaid said in a written statement. “We are amused by ABC apparently just discovering that we write editorials and endorse candidates. We have been doing both for decades and it hasn’t been an issue for ABC or anyone else. Between bowing to the DNC and Trump, ABC is more concerned about appeasing the parties and candidates than informing voters,” he said. “The Union Leader will continue to serve Granite Staters by being a reliable source of information about where candidates stand.”
One sample editorial from last month: “Trump just can’t believe that anyone would reject his insulting, sophomoric campaign. We declined to endorse him because he is unqualified and unsuited for the job he seeks.”
Also last month, Trump lambasted Union Leader publisher Joe McQuaid as a “low life.” McQuaid called the comments “typical Trump” and pointed out that the candidate had called him a “fantastic man” earlier in the year.
The Union Leader is a daily paper that has been a part of New Hampshire history for 150 years. It has sponsored many primary debates over the years, including ABC’s Democratic debate in the state last month.
But the partnership between ABC and the Union Leader was on shaky ground even before that debate, unrelated to Trump’s complaints about the paper, according to the network source.
Following Trump’s attack on the Union Leader, Ray Buckley, chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, defended the staunchly conservative paper.
“This ridiculous attack on New Hampshire’s statewide newspaper threatens the traditions of our First-in-the-Nation primary and makes it clear that the New Hampshire Republican Party has now fully embraced Donald Trump as their frontrunner,” he said.
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