Donald Trump Says He Won’t Appear in Republican Primary Debates

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Donald Trump has announced that he will skip the Republican presidential debates as he has a commanding lead in the party polls days before other candidates meet on the witness stand for the first time.

Trump’s move breaks with the tradition of top presidential candidates participating in debates. The first Republican debate of the 2024 race is scheduled for Wednesday night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The former president, whose campaign has been clouded by criminal charges brought against him at the federal and state levels, had increasingly questioned the need to appear in recent weeks.

In a social media post on Sunday, he confirmed that he would not run alongside his Republican rivals for the White House.

“The public knows who I am and what a successful presidency I had, with energy independence, strong borders and military, the biggest tax and regulatory cuts, no inflation, the strongest economy in history and much more,” Trump wrote. “THEREFORE I WON’T BE DOING THE DEBATES,” he added.

Trump cited a CBS poll released Sunday showing that 62 percent of likely Republican primary voters now say they would back the embattled former president, giving him his biggest lead to date over other contenders in the race to win. with his party’s nomination.

The next most popular candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, trails Trump by a wide margin, garnering support from just 16 percent of those polled. The remaining seven presidential hopefuls only have single-digit support.

The New York Times reported Friday that Trump planned to skip the first debate and instead attend an interview with Tucker Carlson, the fiery conservative TV host who previously worked at Fox News. Trump has not confirmed that plan, but such a decision would be particularly painful for Fox because he will host the debate on Wednesday.

All of Trump’s main rivals are expected to appear in the first debate, including DeSantis; environmental, social and governance (ESG) anti-investment activist Vivek Ramaswamy; South Carolina Senator Tim Scott; Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the UN; and Mike Pence, former vice president of Trump.

“Who knows what will end up happening? We will be prepared either way. But I’m excited to do it because most of what you do in this process is leaked through the media,” DeSantis said during an appearance in Atlanta, Georgia, on Friday.

DeSantis also indirectly referred to Trump and his insistence that he was unfairly deprived of re-election in 2020.: “I hope we will focus on the future of the country, instead of other statics that exist at the moment.

Pence criticized Trump for not showing up. “Every one of us who has qualified for that debate stage should be on the stage, be willing to face off, answer the tough questions and also draw a brilliant contrast” on various issues, the former vice president told ABC News. on Sunday.

To qualify for debate, Republican candidates had to meet certain polling and donor thresholds and commit to supporting the party’s eventual nominee in the general election.

Wisconsin has been a crucial swing state in the past two general elections, with Trump winning by a slim margin in 2016 against Hillary Clinton and then losing it to Joe Biden in 2020, also by a slim margin.

Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for Biden’s re-election campaign, said Trump did not want to appear in Milwaukee because the state exemplified his “failed leadership.” “He cannot hide the fact that Wisconsinites rejected him in 2020 and he will reject the MAGA agenda again in 2024,” Munoz said in a statement.