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As Donald J. Trump continues to criticize Megyn Kelly before the Republican presidential debate on Thursday, Fox News is showing no signs of giving the candidate an inch in his request to remove Ms. Kelly from the debate moderating panel.

“Megyn Kelly is an excellent journalist and the entire network stands behind her — she will absolutely be on the debate stage on Thursday night,” Roger Ailes, the chairman and chief executive of Fox News, said in a statement Tuesday.

The involvement of Mr. Ailes comes as Mr. Trump has accelerated his attacks on Ms. Kelly. On Tuesday, he posted an “Instagram poll” to his account, asking his viewers if they thought Mrs. Kelly “can be fair at a debate.”

The network also released a statement from a spokeswoman:



“We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president — a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.”



Fox News also issued a statement directed at Mr. Trump on Monday, questioning whether he was acting out against Ms. Kelly because he was afraid of the questions she might ask.

Mr. Trump’s Instagram video has received more than 3,000 comments so far.

He has stated that he isn’t “100 percent” certain whether he will participate in the debate on Thursday.