MILWAUKEE — The countdown is on to the first Republican presidential primary debate as the stage is being finalized for a prime-time showdown in Wisconsin next week.
As of Friday evening, former President Donald Trump seemed to have decided against making the trip to Wisconsin for Wednesday’s forum.
The former president posted to his Truth Social platform Thursday, stating that given his lead in the polls he does not see a reason to debate the other candidates. Since then, multiple sources have said Trump plans to skip the Fox News debate altogether and sit down for a virtual interview with ousted network host Tucker Carlson instead.
“I’ve said, ‘Please do the debate.’ I think he should,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in an exclusive interview with Spectrum News on Friday. “I think it isn’t just about the primaries I mentioned earlier. I think it’s about the general election and getting our message in front of the American people, but that’s his decision, and I think either way, we are going to have a lot of people tuning in to see these other candidates that are on the stage.”
With Trump seemingly out of the mix, another 2024 hopeful is trying to get on stage Wednesday. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez claimed he met the RNC requirements and qualified for the debate.
So far, eight candidates have qualified for the primary debate, but Suarez is not one of them — yet.
“He is not qualified yet,” McDaniel confirmed during Friday’s interview. “We have some other polling to go, as well as verification of the 40,000 small, unique donors, so everyone we have said has qualified, from Chris Christie to Nikki Haley to Tim Scott, they have submitted their small-dollar donors to us, and we have verified that.”
Regardless, the stage will be crowded Wednesday night. Eventually, the party will need to get behind just one candidate, as unity will play a crucial role in the outcome of the 2024 election cycle.
McDaniel, the longest-serving chairperson at the RNC since the Civil War, said she has one name in mind when it comes to bringing the party together: Joe Biden.
“I think that’s a great unifier for our party when we see just the tragedy that’s happening across this country with 100,000 people dying of fentanyl on his watch in just one year,” McDaniel explained. “We see an open border. We see crime rising. We see our kids still dealing with massive deficits coming out of the shutdowns forced by the Democrats, and I think a lot of people understand that they are making a lot less under Joe Biden. Inflation is up, gas prices are up, so that’s something that unifies our entire party.”