Trump on debate: ‘I don’t want to attack anybody’

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Wednesday that he hopes the first GOP-sanctioned debate this week is about the issues and not jabbing among those on stage.

“I don’t want to attack anybody. Maybe I’ll be attacked and maybe not. I’d rather just discuss the issues, but certainly I don’t want to attack,” Trump said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

{mosads}“If I’m attacked I have to do something back, but I’d like it to be very civil,” Trump added. 

Trump, a reality TV star and businessman, will be center stage during the primetime debate Thursday on Fox News, flanked by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

“I think every candidate is going to have to bring their A game and it has to be done quickly and concisely,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said on “CBS This Morning.”

Trump told ABC he was “honored” that Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who both jabbed at Trump over several weeks, had ticked down in polls released this week.

Perry and Graham will join five other White House hopefuls at another debate earlier Thursday, after not being among the top 10 GOP candidates in recent polling to make the main debate stage.

“I hope we can keep it on a high level,” Trump told Breitbart. “If that doesn’t happen, I’m willing to go to the other route. But I will say the two people who hit me really hard both went down in the polls.”

While Trump has stayed aloft amid controversy over his comments on immigrants from Mexico and questioning Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) war record, the debate could prove risky for the front-runner.

Trump suggested to ABC that he has “evolved” in his political views over the years like Ronald Reagan, who moved from being a Democrat to Republican. “He liked me and I liked him,” Trump said of Reagan.