All but two of the GOP presidential hopefuls have declined NewsMax’s invitation to participate in a debate moderated by real estate mogul Donald Trump. On Friday’s broadcast of “Imus in the Morning,” Trump expressed his disappointment in Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann for declining to attend, saying that she had previously asked him about being her running mate.
“I’m very disappointed [in] Michele Bachmann,” Trump said. “She’d come up to see me four times — four times, she’d call me, she’d ask me for advice. She said I should be her vice-presidential, you know, if she wins she’d like me to think about me for the vice presidency.”
Trump added that since he had helped promote Bachmann as a candidate in some ways, her decision to turn down his invitation was “unbelievable.”
“I did, like, a two hour phone call for her with her people. And people said, ‘are you endorsing her?’ which, the answer was no, and after all of that she just announced she’s not going to do the debate,” Trump said. “Unbelievable. It’s actually called loyalty. How do you do that?”
Watch:
[dcvideo videoid=”24779641″ name=”ndnPlayer_24779641″ type=”ndn” /]
Trump claimed the lack of the interest in his NewsMax debate was tied to the prospects of him running as an independent candidate in the 2012 election. But he said he’d “have to see” if the event would go on with only former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum committed to participate.
“I don’t know, I have to look into it — I have to see,” Trump replied. “I mean, they want me to drop my status as a potential person to run as an independent. And honestly, I don’t think I’m going to do that. I’m not going to drop it.”