Former President Donald Trump has apparently decided to ditch next week’s GOP primary presidential debate and will instead counter-program the Fox News event by sitting down for an Twitter interview with ex-Fox star Tucker Carlson, The New York Times reported on Friday. With the conservative cable giant going all out to convince the quadruply indicted ex-president to show up, Trump took to his social-media site on Thursday to boast about his GOP polling lead while rhetorically asking why he would debate his Republican rivals. “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. It was reported last month that Trump was considering appearing on Carlson’s show, which airs on the site formerly known as Twitter, in an effort to upstage Fox News. The media-obsessed former president continues to have a love-hate relationship with the right-wing network, recently fuming that Fox & Friends was using the “worst pictures” of him and failing to report flattering poll results. At the same time, Trump recently sat down for a chummy interview with Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, who served as an economic adviser in the Trump administration. Meanwhile, with Trump now presumably skipping out, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis can try out his debate plan of defending the absent ex-president from verbal attacks from other candidates.
