Will Donald Trump renew hostilities with Megyn Kelly at GOP debate?
Donald Trump comes face to face with Megyn Kelly for the first time in months in Thursday night's Republican debate.
The Republican front-runner has been locked in an ugly feud with the Fox News anchor since their first fiery debate confrontation, but you could expect a much tamer Trump at the stage. In an interview with the Associated Press, Megyn Kelly said she doesn't expect Trump to be combative and that his focus has likely shifted from her to securing the nomination, reports CBS News correspondent Julianna Goldman.
August's first Republican debate sparked an epic feud between Trump and Kelly.
"You know, you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever," Trump said following the debate on CNN.
"Mr. Trump did interviews over the weekend that attacked me personally, and I've decided not to respond," Kelly said.
Trump continued to engage. He re-tweeted a message calling her a "bimbo" and criticized her Fox News show.
Months later, in October, Kelly addressed the dust-up on Charlie Rose's PBS program.
"We weren't in a war with Donald Trump. He was just upset with us," she said. "We weren't upset with him. Again, we just wanted to forge forward."
In January, things escalated when Kelly told Vanity Fair that before Trump was running for president, he'd call "from time to time to compliment a segment." Kelly added, "But I can't be wooed."
Trump responded to the article with a tweet that said, "She is so average in every way, who the hell wants to woo her!"
And two days before Fox's Iowa debate, the mogul withdrew. "When you're treated badly you have to stick up for your rights," Trump said at a veterans fundraising event he attended instead in Iowa. He later admitted that not being on stage may have hurt him at the polls.
Marisa Guthrie with the Hollywood Reporter isn't expecting a Kelly-Trump rematch.
"I think the stakes are very different for Donald Trump now versus last August in that first Fox News debate," Guthrie said. "He needs to appear presidential. He's been running on his persona -- I think he realizes now is the time to get serious, drill down a little bit more on the issues."
As for Kelly's strategy, she said Monday, "Well I have my questions that I wanted to ask him at the last debate and I just moved them right over to this debate. So that's my plan."
Kelly told the Associated Press that perhaps Trump mistakenly thought Fox -- and by default, she -- would go easy on him in the first debate and added, "At this point in the game he understands better how these things go."