Why are you so afraid to debate?
Posted on 06/07/2023 3:47:38 AM PDT by cotton1706
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich advised former President Trump not to waste his time debating rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination during a Tuesday morning guest spot with FBN's "Mornings With Maria" Bartiromo.
NEWT GINGRICH: In the national polls, [Trump is] up over Biden by a bigger margin than Governor DeSantis. Look, I think Governor DeSantis has been a very good governor in Florida, I think he's very successful, he's certainly done a great job with the state.
I think he found it very hard to transition to being a presidential candidate. He had a chance to make it one-of-two between he and Trump, he clearly has failed. That's why you have all these new candidates coming in. And all of them, think of it this way. There are two lakes here. There's a Trump lake, at 53, 54%, and everybody else. The problem is that everybody else ought to be focusing on draining the Trump lake and making it smaller, instead they are all going to be competing for the same 40% of the vote.
I guarantee you at Mar-a-Lago, they break out the champagne every time there's a new candidate. They would love to have 15 or 20 candidates.
I predict Trump will not be at debates. He will say, "I am ahead by 28, 30, 35 points, why would I get on a stage with somebody who's at 3%?" And then the country will basically ignore the debates.
MARIA BARTIROMO: So you don't think he's going to be at this first upcoming GOP debate in August then?
NEWT GINGRICH: My personal advice would be don't do it. why would you go there and give publicity to people who can not get publicity on their own?
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Let the McRomBushes argue amongst themselves.
I personally think Gingrich’s advice is not only bad but crazy, voters want to see their candidates debate each other, in an open forum.
Trump showed up in 2016 and destroyed his rivals and gave himself the momentum to wrap up the nomination fairly quickly.
If he doesn’t go, his opponents will trash him anyway for being scared to face his rivals and any other criticism they can come up with. Trump will be reduced to responding on social media, which you know he will.
Then Trump and his rivals will be in this tit for tat debate war and not over real policy positions.
Yeah, why should he have to explain Omarosa, Cohen, Fauci, Birks, Tillerson, Jared, Scaramucci, Mattis, Sessions, Wray, Barr.. I’m sure there are more. He told us he was going to bring in the best people, but he brought in almost nothing but trash.
I second that!!!
A better idea,,,,
Get Clint Eastwood and some empty chairs and hold his own .
The only reason Trump is perceived as ahead is because he’s been running for months now and has never been challenged to present a program simply because he didn’t have to since nobody else was running or had announced at that point. Now you have everybody from Christie to RFK Jr running and presenting their ideas.
RFK Jr is a libertarian/Dem but will be an attractive candidate to many, especially since Trump seems to be leaning to the liberal side on the “social issues” and thus there’s less difference between him and the Dems on these issues. Most important, RFK Jr is bringing up the unmentionable, which is Trump’s support for and promotion of the vaccines and the shutdown.
Now that more people are officially running, Trump can’t coast along on name recognition, the sympathy he gained from that loony indictment, and his fanatical groupies. Biden apparently also plans to skip debates or even serious interviews.
Both of these old men need to get real. People have a right to know what the candidates think, how they express themselves, and even how they look in a public discussion.
We don’t “owe” our votes to anybody.
No one will know if they trash him because no one will be watching. Look at thr level of enthusiasm for the NJ primary when Trump didn’t have a horse in the rave. No one cares. I’d say font go to the first few and let them split the vote with Desanctimonius a bit more first. Then he can jump in later to push his messaging.
The purpose of the debate is to find out what the candidate will do if elected. Trump is already a known entity. Perhaps he can just have a big screen on the stage scrolling all the stats and accomplishments. He can then address anything else via TS afterward.
Debate? These things are staged events, with "reporters" asking Trump a series of 'gatcha questions'. They're a public farce that discerning Americans should avoid.
People will watch, obviously more will watch if Trump attends the debate, you get out there and advocate for your positions.
Whatever the Republicans say about him, the Democrats will be just as bad if not worse.
Overall, IMO it’s a terrible idea to opt out of the debates based on the assumption the nomination is already decided,
It looks like Trump is about to be indicted a 2nd time over the classified documents issue, you can be 100% sure that will be a debate topic if the indictment happens, Trump has to answer questions about the issue, it would be much better for him to do it in a debate than having to answer the allegations on Social media or getting badgered by Reporters.
The audience numbers and TV ratings suggest your ideas are not accepted by millions of American voters.
I think that Trump really enjoyed the debates in 2016, as it gave him the opportunity to belittle his opponents one by one.
“Trump is already a known entity.”
Yes. He already participated in a four-year debate. Why waste time behind a podium saying he’s going to fix the economy, stop sending our kids to die for countries who hate us, open up fossil fuels to bring down gas prices. Have world leaders respect us, etc.? He’s already done that.
In some forum, I think he does need to denounce his strong support for the clot shot. Also make sure that everyone on earth understands that he never mandated them and that he was against mandates.
I’m not giving my primary vote to anybody who refuses to debate.
So you have locked yourself in with one of the many eGOP toads who are going to 'debate' the finer points of rinoisms.
Why are you so afraid to debate?
2024 is not going to be politics as usual. The Trump years showed us definitively we have no two party system. We have one Uniparty and they did everything they could, and are still trying to this day, to destroy Donald Trump because he dared to change the DC apparatus. Ronnie D and the rest of the Repukes in the race are in there to defeat Trump and defend the status quo in The Swamp.
This is why we lose.
Seriously, Sirius Lee?
That’ll be a fine Lineup Of Losers to choose from, and good luck with that.
I can see both sides of whether or not PDJT should attend any debate. I guess in the end it’ll play out the way it’s supposed to.
This is why we lose.
————
Nah. Stolen elections.
I can’t believe an obviously impaired Biden will run again, much less debate. He can’t manage a complete sentence without notes. I bet he uses a walker when cameras aren’t there.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.