Former president Donald Trump plans to skip the first Republican primary debate on Wednesday and will instead sit for an interview with Tucker Carlson.
The debate night plan, first reported by the New York Times, was finalized in recent days after Trump spent weeks crowd testing the question with campaign crowds and waffling on the topic in private discussions with advisers.
The exact timing of the Tucker Carlson interview is still up in the air, but if the sit-down streams live on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, during the debate time slot, it could simultaneously strike a blow against Fox and diminish Trump’s Republican primary opponents, all of whom are currently running well behind the frontrunner.
“Reagan didn’t do it, and neither did others. People know my Record, one of the BEST EVER, so why would I Debate?” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday.
Counter-programming the Milwaukee debate with a Trump sit-down would escalate Carlson’s ongoing public feud with his former employer, which sent Carlson a cease-and-desist letter after he began streaming his interview show on X in alleged violation of the Fox contract he remains subject to.
Fox president Jay Wallace and CEO Suzanne Scott recently had dinner with Trump at his Bedminster golf course and urged the former president to attend the debate, the Times reported. RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has also reportedly pleaded with Trump to attend.
In addition to Trump, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, former vice president Mike Pence, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, Senator Tim Scott (R., S.C.), and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley have all cleared the donor and polling threshold required to qualify for the debate stage.
While Christie is expected to train his fire directly on Trump, whether the former president is in attendance or not, the rest of the field will likely keep a respectful distance.
Memos posted this week on the website of Axiom Strategies, the firm run by Jeff Roe, the chief strategist of the DeSantis PAC Never Back Down, outlined DeSantis’s debate strategy. The memos suggest that DeSantis “hammer” Ramaswamy, who has been steadily climbing in the polls of late, and “defend Trump” from Christie’s inevitable attacks.