Former President Donald Trump suggested that he might participate in future Republican presidential primary debates.
The former president skipped the first debate and aired a pre-recorded interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
The
second debate is scheduled for Sept. 27 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, and will be televised on Fox Business and Univision.
On Aug. 31, President Trump did not rule out the possibility of taking part in a future debate, during an interview on
Todd Starnes’s radio show. He was asked, “Do you anticipate at some point jumping into the debates?”
“I might,” President Trump responded. “I mean, you know, it’s possible.”
“I liked debating. I guess I won because of the debates,” he added. “You know, they’ve been very good to me, so I might, but at this moment, I’m leading by so much that it seems to be foolish to do it.”
President Trump has a commanding lead in
FiveThirtyEight’s GOP presidential primary poll average. As of Aug. 30, the average shows the former president with 50.3 percent support nationally, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at a distant 14.8 percent.
The former president said his interview with Mr. Carlson on X, formerly known as Twitter, was a “tremendous success.”
“I would say that would be a lot better than a debate, frankly,” he added.
The presidential debate, which was held in Wisconsin on Aug. 23, drew about
13 million viewers. In contrast, the Trump–Tucker interview had nearly
200 million views as of Aug. 24, though views on X are counted when a person views a post, regardless of if the individual watched the entire video.
According to a new Economist-YouGov
poll, 61 percent of Republicans said they strongly or somewhat approved of President Trump’s decision not to participate in the first debate, while 22 percent said they did not, and the remaining 16 percent said they were not sure. The poll was conducted between Aug. 26 and Aug. 29.
As for the second debate, 57 percent of Republicans said they believed President Trump should participate, while 17 percent said he should not, and 26 percent said they were not sure, according to the poll.
Mr. Starnes also asked the former president if he saw anyone at the debate who might be good to be his running mate, while also suggesting that he could pick Arizona Republican candidate Kari Lake. However, President Trump did not respond to the question.
Earlier this week, President Trump
praised Vivek Ramaswamy when asked by talk show host Glenn Beck if he had given any consideration to the 38-year-old biotech entrepreneur as a potential running mate.
“I think he’s great,” President Trump told Mr. Beck. “Look, anybody that’s said I’m the best president in a generation ... and he said it a couple of times ... I have to like a guy like that.”
On Wednesday, President Trump released a
short video on his Truth Social account, criticizing some of the presidential hopefuls at the first debate as “second-tier” candidates.
“They’re just pretenders to the throne. These aren’t presidential people. These aren’t presidential talents,” he said in the video, while naming former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
In Fulton County, Georgia, President Trump and 18 co-defendants were
indicted on Aug. 14 in connection with his efforts to dispute the state’s 2020 election results.
On Thursday, President Trump
pleaded not guilty in the Georgia election case and waived his arraignment that had been
scheduled for Sept. 6.
