(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) Donald Trump will be sitting for an online interview Wednesday night with Tucker Carlson, absent from the first GOP 2024 presidential primary debate in Milwaukee, but the former president and his campaign had already cast a wide shadow over the stage.
Starting with his proclamation on Truth Social over the weekend that “The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had” Trump cited his administration’s myriad accomplishments and an NBC poll that showed him leading his next closet competitor by a whopping 46%, before declaring “I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!”
Mainstream media and social media pundits spent the ensuing days in a frenzied reporting of how the eight candidates participating in the debate would respond to Trump’s absence, and how it would impact their own standings.
Reacting to the media’s obsession with how the other candidate’s would measure up to Trump, the former president’s MAGA PAC promoted the presidential debate as a de facto tryout for a slot on a Trump 2024 ticket as Veep.
The group even created a website where viewers watching the actual debate could vote for the winner of the “Vice Presidential Debate 2024” whose caricatures line a stage like pageant contestants: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
In a reported fit of pique at the possibility of Trump’s debate night interview with Carlson cutting into event-host Fox News’ ratings, the network slapped back by restricting post-debate “spin room” access for Trump allies.
“Trump senior aides who had indicated they’d be in the spin room — where campaigns tout their candidate and rip their foes — now will be able to enter only if they’re guests of media organizations,” according to an internal Fox memo obtained by Axios.
Trump shrugged off any intended slight with a dismissive post on Truth Social.
On the chance that any of the presidential contenders should make a shocking breakthrough during Wednesday night’s debate, Trump’s shadow would likely once again dim any immediate post-debate Thursday media attention that could be used for public acclaim.
“Can you believe it? I’ll be going to Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday to be ARRESTED by a Radical Left District Attorney, Fani Willis, who is overseeing one of the greatest Murder and Violent Crime DISASTERS in American History,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It is all about ELECTION INTERFERENCE!”
Mark Pellin is an editor at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/sabrepaw70.
