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 ...
Agree. The next time Trump turns down a TV camera appearance will be the first time. No way he skips any TV debates.
The debates add nothing other than give the Communist media another chance to attack and distort.
The idea that the only way to engage those voters is on a fox news debate is laughable
And everyone could spend time attacking him instead. Sounds fun
Agree
Especially with Never-Trumpers like Barr. What a fool, why give him facetime?
Trump leads DeSantis by a wide margin, even in his home state of Florida. A large number of those polled are 70+ (young kids don't bother w/polling), and keep in mind that's with him being banned from television and social media since election day, 2020. He should change nothing, even if that upsets a handful of seniors.
Agree, UNLESS the formats are different, NO moderators, just time keepers. AND, if your name/policy comes up from someone, YOU get equal time to respond. So that way it’s about what YOU stand for, what the Dems are doing wrong, and if it gets into a attack on Trump he gets to respond w/o a pile on.
Trump should invite them all to debate him on Truth Social tv and should use a non MSM anchor to host the debates
And the Never Trumpers tell us it earned him 81 million votes. Why wouldn’t you follow such a successful strategy
I never said it was the only way to engage those voters, it is a big way to do it, that group watches debates and votes in big numbers, why close yourself off to those voters, it makes no sense.
I would be willing to bet, voters over the age of 70 are watching debates on TV in far greater numbers than getting their election information on social media or other non-traditional ways.
IMO, if you are running for public office, you simply don’t write off a group of voters like the over 70 crowd.
How many Republican candidates are popular enough to write off blocks of voters and still have a good chance of winning, especially someone running from POTUS.
Do you believe we have honest elections?
They are indeed not debates in the truest sense; however, Trump used them in 2016 to destroy his opponents.
I would suggest getting the right moderators is far more important than how the debate is structured.
It's been explained. You just insist on being right about something that you are dead wrong about. I don't need to hear from your favorite eGOP toad to know I won't vote for them. I know who Trump is. Trump has my vote.
“Not to mention imo the electorate should hear Trumps positions and have them put to the test in the public sphere. Unless you’re concerned Trump’s lead will evaporate in debates. Which imo are one of his strengths.”
Those debates don’t do anything either. And haven’t in years. Because the “commission on presidential debates” with board members like Olympia Snowe stack the deck against the Republican nominee. Last time they wanted a former Biden staffer to be the moderator.
History tells us that the way to 81 million votes is to ignore rallies, skip debates and openly say you have the best voter fraud plan in History
Not that I believe they got 81 million votes, but they lost because the Rats had a devastating TV ad campaign that the GOP never countered. And everybody was watching TV because of COVID.
YEP!
Which is exactly why for any Republican to write off a block of voters is not only crazy but insane.
A Republican candidate for POTUS needs every vote they can get to have any chance of winning, just as importantly they need an effective strategy for dealing with mail in voters and ballot harvesting.
Three things have changed since then. First, those opponents have never recovered. Second, the media shows nothing but contempt for Trump (and MAGA). and Third, Trump is a former president, currently leading the pack by a large margin. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose.
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