The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump's Opponents Debate Tomorrow — He Says He Won't Show Up

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, former vice president Mike Pence, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina will participate in the first Republican primary debate tomorrow in Milwaukee. Trump, in lieu of participating, sat for an interview with broadcaster Tucker Carlson.This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, my name's Harrison. I'm an emergency room pediatrician here in Washington, D.C. I just finished a shift and I'm enjoying a lovely scooter ride home. It's my daily ritual to listen to the pod during my scoots to and from work. Don't worry, I stopped to make this timestamp. And I do recognize there's an irony to working in the ER and having the enthusiasm for e-scooters that I do. But, oh well. This podcast was recorded at 1.05 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, August 22nd of 2023. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but I'll still be in love with my job, grateful that I get to do what I do, and scooting off into the sunset. Here's the sunset. Here's the show.

It seemed like it would take some real skill heading nonstop. I mean, I can't. I certainly want him listening to the pod, but while he's scooting, that doesn't sound that safe. That made me a little nervous too, Franco. I didn't want to be the damp in an enjoyment, but stay safe out there. That's all I'm saying. I trust you have your good instincts. I think he trusted his skills. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Frank Ordonez. I also cover the White House as well as the Trump campaign. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.

And tomorrow night, eight Republican presidential candidates will face off in Milwaukee for the first GOP primary debate of the 2024 election cycle. The candidates include, drumroll, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, and the former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson. Now, one big notable exception from that list is the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.

He will not be there. So, Frank, let's start there. Why is Trump refusing to show up to the debate? Yeah, I mean, basically, he says it's the smart thing to do from a strategic standpoint. And I mean, he may be right. I mean, Domenico can talk about this endlessly. Debates are a chance to get to know the candidates. And the former president argues that voters already know him and they know what kind of

president he is and would be if he's reelected. You know, he says he should not or he asked why should he prop up his rivals who are so far behind. You know, he's averaging over 50%. I was just looking today in one poll, he's at over 60% in support among Republican voters. I mean, that's a lot. So the question is, why should he prop up his rivals? Now, that said, you know, I've covered Trump for many years, you know, including when he was in the White House. And I'm still a little surprised that he would give up, you know, the spotlight, especially in such a critical state like Wisconsin. I guess he's not totally giving it up, though, Franco, right? I mean, he is counter-programming. Yeah, he announced that he did an interview with former Fox host Tucker Carlson,

and that interview is going to be available around the same time as the debate. You know, Franco and I were talking about this around the office a couple weeks ago, and I said I would not be surprised if Trump did not show up. And that's because Trump's done this before. We've seen this movie. Remember in 2016, when he said that then Fox host Megyn Kelly had blood coming out of her wherever because she was tough on him with her questioning. He then skipped a debate that she would be hosting. So, you know, he's done this. Trump is chaos. He loves to throw things into a place where most people wouldn't expect it to go. It gains him lots of attention. And then

he can sort of grab the spotlight, which he is going to do again this week. So, Domenico, do you think that it is a politically savvy decision that Trump is making here? Well, look, the thing is, we've talked about this before, that this is a move that a lot of like Senate candidates, congressional candidates who are incumbents will try to pull, you know, where they don't want to debate because with a big lead, with the of risk because he doesn't have to debate, especially somebody like a Chris Christie who's going to go after him directly. He doesn't have to answer tough questions from him or other moderators who might ask him some things that make him uncomfortable with a huge lead. At the same time, I do think when it comes to presidential debates, people have a little bit higher bar for what they expect from their presidential candidates. But when it comes to this Republican Party, he certainly has such high favorable ratings with the Republican base that it probably doesn't hurt him politically. And I'll argue, and I think this speaks to kind of both of our points, if he does, you know, if he skips this debate and maybe skips the next one,

and I think there's questions of when or if he'll come back to another debate. When he does come back, you know, the drama will be even higher because, hey, here's the one where Trump is going to, you know, going to join the debate. And there's going to be a lot more attention on it. Let's talk about the other eight Republicans who are on stage. They need to somehow break through, gain a little bit of momentum. How do they do that? Well, I think that's a really difficult thing to answer because Trump is like the solar eclipse of the Republican Party at this point. And, you know, he's, regardless of whether he's there or not, he's going to be the main issue. The problem for these other Republicans is that they really can't go after Trump because of how entrenched

those warm feelings are for him. I mean, CBS had a poll that came out on Sunday that showed that 91% of likely GOP voters wanted these candidates to focus on making the case for themselves rather than going after Trump. And there might be candidates who can do that, but they're going to have to really show that they have a grasp of the issues, that they are disciplined, that they have a command, and that they can debate the other candidates and come off well. Yeah, I would just, I mean, I agree with all those points. And I do kind of think it probably is going to take some type of viral type moment for one of the candidates to kind of break through and, you know, break through the noise and, you know, maybe a notable attack against one or the other.

You know, maybe someone will surprise us and go after Trump more, someone else other than Chris Christie, of course. But, you know, as Domenico says, we have not seen that yet. But, you know, as all the Republican strategists that I talk to, you know, they tell me that they're not going to be the candidate, they're not going to be the nominee, unless they do take on Trump more directly. And they had been at least before telling me that this was going to be the opportunity. So I'll be curious if they do take, you know, take the opportunity and do, you know, try to do something to kind of differentiate themselves. If they're not willing to take on Donald Trump, do you think that some of the other candidates on stage may go after the guy who's in second place more? Does he become the target for a bulk

of their attacks? That being the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis? Well, the thing is, it's not like DeSantis is on the rise. It's kind of the opposite, right? So I don't know that they really need to. I mean, I saw his campaign right now referred to as sputtering. I think that's a pretty good description of where his campaign is at right now. He really hasn't found his footing. I mean, I thought it was kind of, frankly, politically embarrassing what I heard from a lot of other Republican strategists who aren't affiliated with campaigns. They used that word to describe this super PAC memo that was leaked

to talk about what his debate strategy could be in defending Trump and going after someone like former tech CEO Vivek Ramaswamy, who no one really would have given a chance to win the nomination before this and likely really doesn't have much of a shot of winning this nomination, but has done a lot of things to gain a lot of attention and pull, frankly, a lot of political stunts to be able to, you know, get his name out there more. And if you're doing that, and you're DeSantis, you're really punching down. Yeah, and we should point out that there are certainly some Republican candidates who did not qualify for even this first debate. All right, it is time for a quick break. We'll be back in a moment.

And we're back. And I want to talk about the qualification criteria for this debate. There is a donor threshold. There is a polling threshold. But there's also this other interesting requirement, some sort of, I would say, loyalty pledge. Domenico, fill us in on exactly what this pledge is. Well, the pledge is to say that even if you don't win the nomination, that you'll support whomever the Republican nominee is.

Now, I find it highly ironic that Trump is the one who's not showing up to this debate because he refused to sign this pledge when this pledge was put in in the first place to benefit him so that other candidates would pledge that they would support Trump if he was the one to win the nomination. Because at that time, there was a lot, there were a lot of grumblings from different Republicans about whether or not Trump was the person that they wanted to support to be the nominee again. And now here's Trump saying he's not going to debate because he won't support whomever the Republican nominee is necessarily. And it again just shows Trump is making this what he believes to be a party of one. I mean, what's the sort of teeth, though, behind this loyalty pledge? Because

I can think of, you know, two candidates in particular on the debate stage, former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, who've been very vocal critics of Donald Trump and suggested they would not support him. Totally. And they had some conversations internally in those campaigns, the Christie campaign in particular, I know, had some conversations about whether or not they wanted to go through with that, because at the end of the day, what their decision making was, is that you're right, it doesn't matter. You can just say it and not mean it. And it would still give Christie the opportunity to get some shots in at Trump or some questions or make him uncomfortable and put him on his heels. So Franco and Domenico, a question to both of you. I want to know what else you will be keeping

an eye on Wednesday night, you know, both in terms of who may be a winner out of this debate, whether in fact Trump may be the winner out of this. Tell me what else you all are keeping an eye on. I mean, one thing I'm going to be looking on is whether these other candidates kind of grab the opportunity to take the spotlight. I mean, because as we talked about before, former President Trump is going to be counter-programming. And they're also, the campaign's also kind of spoofing the candidates. One of Trump's PACs put out a website, actually,

calling this the vice president debate, with some of the rival's heads, you know, kind of in little bobblehead dolls. So I think there is a risk if they don heads, you know, kind of in little bobblehead dolls. So I think there is a risk if they don't, you know, show leadership, if they don't have some type of moment, they could look bad. Yeah, I agree with that. Totally. I mean, you know, in 2016, you know, they had so many candidates, they had to do a second stage in the Republican primary was colloquially known as the JV debate this time, really, Republicans don't even need a second stage. This is the second stage. But this is a huge opportunity for these candidates. With Trump out of the picture, while he is sort of still the focus and the elephant in

the room, you know, these candidates, it's an opportunity for them to talk to millions of people. It's a chance for them to shine. And we're going to see if somebody can grab that spotlight. The other thing I think we should stay focused on as well is the substance. I mean, what do these candidates wind up talking about? What is their message? Republican primary voters continue to say that inflation and the economy are their top issue, for example. Well, what actual solutions that are tangible will these candidates put forward rather than

simply saying that they'll fire the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell? What can they actually put forward that the American people can trust that their strategy will work and be different than what the Biden administration is putting forward? It reminds me a little bit of how they're talking currently about the economy, like what they used to talk about in 2012 and 2016, when it came to Obamacare and healthcare, talking it down, but having no replacement. I mean, the other question I keep wondering is to what degree anything though, from the debate does fundamentally break through, because, you know, you think that candidates might have a bit of a post debate bump. But we have news, because Donald Trump posted himself on the social media platform,

he controls Truth Social, that he is planning to go to Atlanta, Georgia on Thursday, the day after the debate to be arrested. That will be dominating the news cycle the day after the debate. Yeah, I mean, no question. I mean, it is going to suck the oxygen out of, you know, the Republican primaries once again. I mean, we've talked about it here. It's been talked about endlessly about how this primary is so focused on Trump and his indictments and not on the things that Domenico was just talking about, the issues that are important to Republicans and the things that they want to run on. But that is kind of the reality of the moment right now.

And it doesn't look like it's going to change anytime soon. Yeah, and you're right, Asma. I mean, there usually is a winner after the debate. But, you know, Trump will again step on that and be able to dominate the news coverage as he has for the past eight years. All right. Well, that is a wrap for today's show. One quick planning note for our loyal listeners. We will not have a normal episode in your feed tomorrow. We'll actually be back in your feeds in the wee hours of the night with our post-debate podcast.

So make sure you all tune in first thing Thursday morning for all the analysis that you regularly turn to us for. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Frank Ordonez. I also cover the White House and I cover the Trump campaign. Thank you.