OPINION:
To debate or not to debate in the first Republican presidential primary event on Aug. 23 in Milwaukee. That is the question former President Donald Trump will answer soon.
Here’s why my former boss may tell debate host Fox News and a RINO-infested Republican National Committee to go pound Mar-a-Lago sand.
First, Fox News can’t be trusted to conduct a fair debate. The self-anointed Fox kingmaker Rupert Murdoch has promised to stop Mr. Trump from winning the Republican nomination. Debate moderator Bret Baier is infamous for prematurely calling Arizona for President Biden in the 2020 election.
Most recently, Mr. Baier has already clashed with Mr. Trump in a widely panned interview.
Second, Mr. Murdoch’s Fox, on orders from board member Paul Ryan, has refused for more than two years to provide broad coverage of Trump’s rallies. Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott has also banned Mr. Trump’s most effective surrogates from appearing on the network.
So why boost Fox News’ ratings, Mr. Trump is surely asking himself. The former president knows his participation would add millions of viewers.
Third, the debate sponsor, the Republican National Committee, can’t be trusted any further than you can throw Fox News off your TV. That’s not speculation: In a poll I conducted on my Substack with more than 2,500 respondents, over 95% said they didn’t trust either Fox News or the RNC to produce a fair debate.
The RNC’s hidden Never-Trump agenda is barely hidden. RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel — niece of the infamous Never-Trumper Sen. Mitt Romney — won a hotly contested race against staunch Trump loyalists Harmeet Dhillon and Mike Lindell while numerous RNC members are on record as opposing a Trump bid in 2024.
Fourth, Mr. Trump’s substantial poll numbers make him the presumptive nominee. No good can come of a debate-fueled contested primary that drains campaign dollars and resources away from the general election.
Memo to the RNC: The rival Democratic National Committee certainly isn’t sponsoring any primary debates and pressuring President Biden to debate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is as close to Mr. Biden in the Democratic polls as anyone is to Mr. Trump in the Republican race.
Fifth, the RNC has set a laughably low bar for getting on the debate stage. All one needs in three major polls is 1% support plus 40,000 donors — something even I could do in my sleep.
Because of this low bar, Mr. Trump would face off against a Keebler elves lineup featuring three Never-Trump mercenaries funded by globalist dark money — former Vice President Mike Pence, last seen sticking a knife in the back of the man who rescued him from political oblivion; former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, aka the Pillsbury Doughboy of venom; and lean and hungry former U.N. Ambassador Nikki “Cassius” Haley, who never missed a beat in the Trump administration to stick it to the boss.
Each of these Koch network phantasms has zero chance of winning. They are simply in the race to attack Mr. Trump, and no good can come from allowing them to try to send Mr. Trump battered, bruised and bleeding into a general election it is critical for the Republican Party to win.
Sixth, falling star Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been wildly successful at one thing: digging his introverted and socially awkward self into a retail political hole. Why would Mr. Trump want to throw DeSanctimonious a shovel by sharing a stage with Gov. Stiff?
Here’s an Art of the Deal idea for my old boss: If you really want to put your hand on the stove again and debate, demand at least two concessions from Fox News President Jay “Woke” Wallace: (1) All Trump rallies must receive full live coverage, and (2) all Trump surrogates canceled from Fox must immediately be reinstated.
Now here’s an even better idea straight from my Substack poll: Forget about bargaining with Fox News entirely and go straight to the RNC with these three demands:
• The RNC must strip Fox of its monopoly and host all debates itself at a neutral site like Hillsdale College, Regent University, Liberty University, or some other conservative academic institution.
• The RNC must go back to the glorious Nixon-Kennedy, Reagan-Carter past, where debate questions were posed directly to the candidates by a broad spectrum of both TV and print media reporters.
In this case, such a Questioners’ Row would include journalists from real conservative networks such as Newsmax and Real America’s Voice and real conservative news outlets like The Washington Times, The Federalist, Just the News, Epoch Times and Gateway Pundit.
• Most importantly, the RNC must broadcast the debates through a live public access feed on any network, social media platform or website.
This modest livestream proposal alone would bring the Republican primary debates unfiltered to as many American voters as possible, and it is supported by over 90% of the respondents in my Substack poll. Can I get an amen and a hallelujah?
• Peter Navarro served as former President Donald Trump’s manufacturing czar and chief China strategist. This column originally appeared at http://peternavarro.substack.com.
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