Trump: It’s Roger Ailes’s fault I’m skipping the debate, not Megyn Kelly’s. (OK, it’s a little bit Megyn Kelly’s fault.)

When Donald Trump announced that he would be skipping Thursday night’s Republican debate, it was widely assumed that his decision was spurred by Fox News’s refusal to drop moderator Megyn Kelly, whom Trump has sparred repeatedly with this election cycle. “This is rooted in one thing—Megyn Kelly, whom he has viciously attacked since August and has now spent four days demanding be removed from the debate stage,” Fox News said in a statement. 

But the statement Trump released announcing his decision to boycott the debate made no mention of Kelly, and on Wednesday evening he tweeted that it was a press release from Fox News that inspired him to drop out: 

Here’s the childishly written statement in question—Fox was razzing Trump for running a Twitter poll asking if he should skip the debate: 

Now Trump isn’t taking Ailes’s calls and it seems like he isn’t bluffing. Trump has a charity event scheduled with a veterans group at the same time as tomorrow’s debate. Skipping out on Fox is one thing; skipping out on veterans is another.