Will Trump eventually show up for a primary debate?

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

America’s front-runners share a winning debate strategy: don’t turn up. Much as Joe Biden is dodging the chance to share a stage with Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — because why would you? — Donald Trump opted to skip out on the Republican National Committee and Fox News’s first debate in Milwaukee. 

Trump is still aggrieved by what he perceives as the network’s ill treatment of him, both in its “early” — but correct — call of Arizona in the 2020 election and its coverage since: there is a palpable yearning among executives to “move on” from Trump.

Rather than show up in America’s Dairyland, Trump pre-taped an interview with Tucker Carlson, the top rated Fox anchor until his unceremonious ousting earlier this summer, and opted to send various campaign surrogates. A pre-debate scuffle had suggested that the RNC would deny them spin room access. In reality, most made it in: Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle held an impromptu huddle in the middle of the media filing center, while the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz drew small crowds in the spin room.

Florida congressman Byron Donalds, one such surrogate, didn’t think anyone in the field was close enough in polling to merit Trump showing up. “Somebody gets in between fifteen and I think he got some,” he told The Spectator in the spin room huddle. “I do believe that, in the primary, at some point, [Trump will] get on that stage. But I don’t think anything tonight really has him thinking, ‘Man, I really better show up in Sima Valley.’ He might still decide to show up at the Reagan Library. I don’t know.”

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung was even more dismissive. When asked if there was a margin by which Trump would consider a primary debate, he responded, “mathematically impossible,” dismissing the idea that another Republican could get close. “Right now President Trump is leading the national polls. He’s leading by huge margins. But go look at the state numbers, state by state: leading big in Iowa, in early states like New Hampshire, he’s still leading big. And you see Ron DeSantis slipping to fourth place. You see South Carolina, same thing: President Trump with a huge lead. Nevada, these early states, these Super Tuesday states, you look at all the endorsements he’s been able to gather in Congress, gubernatorial endorsements, you take the totality of everything that’s behind President Trump, momentum is with him.”

Would Trump be looking at these debates and assessing the field for a potential VP pick?

“Not to my knowledge, no,” Cheung told The Spectator. “No, he’s never mentioned it to me. Whoever he chooses, it’s going to be his decision. But it’s a ways away.”

“I think President Trump is always looking at everything when it comes to future administrations,” Donalds said. “He’s always paying attention and he’s watching a lot of things. I honestly don’t know if he’s even going to watch the debate tonight. He might. He might not. Who knows? But nobody really broke out here.”

One result of Trump not being on the RNC stage was that only Vivek Ramaswamy was coming out hard against sending more US money to Ukraine. The issue has proved divisive on the American right throughout the conflict — and polling has offered mixed results.

Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt thought that Vivek was “a little bit naïve about leading with foreign policy.” He articulated the position of many elected Republicans: “As Americans, when you talk about foreign policy, we need to be the leader of the free world. And I think we can do both: I think we can re-inspire Americans and we can secure our southern border. And at the same time, we can lead and we can be a leader. I loved what Pence said there and also Nikki Haley.”

On the Ukraine issue, Stitt told The Spectator: “When you’re going to roll troops into a sovereign country, there should be consequences. When you see Putin aligning himself with communist China… we need to support our friends. And I think that’s what you’re seeing us do there in Ukraine.”

What did Oklahomans make of the Ukraine conflict? “Part of our defense budget — of course, we can’t spend all of our money there — but 2 percent, 3 percent of our defense budget to defend our way of life and one of our allies and our friends and stop aggression at one spot… you can’t let a bully have a free rein. We saw that in World War Two.”

Cheung, like Vivek on stage, saw a different explanation for why so many Republican politicians vouched to fund the Ukrainian war effort. “Donors and big money plays a factor in candidates’ positions,” he told The Spectator. “It’s also the establishment trying to flex their muscle and say ‘this is the only way to go. Spend more money on more wars.’”

Instead of heading to Wisconsin, Trump will have had one eye on Georgia, as his former lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell showed up to be booked at Fulton County Jail. “ARREST TIME: 7:30 P.M.” he posted on Truth Social ahead of his own mugshot tonight. Yet another way to pull focus from the rest of the primary…