Feehery: He always wins — and 4 other reasons Trump will regret skipping the debate 

Donald Trump will look back on his decision not to participate in the Republican debates with regret. Here are five reasons why the former president should have gone to Milwaukee instead of playing golf in New Jersey. 

He always wins: It may be inexplicable to the pundit class, but Trump always wins debates. The only notable exception to that rule was his first encounter with Joe Biden, when he lost and lost bad. But it turns out he had COVID-19 and it almost killed him, so we have to throw out that one example.  

Trump wins debates because he speaks in language that the average voter appreciates. He doesn’t get caught up in legislative jargon. He doesn’t cite H.R. blah, blah, blah. He won the debates in the 2016 primary by challenging the conventional wisdom and by going after sacred cows. And while Hillary Clinton might have had better command of her briefing book and the policy details, Trump had a better sense of the mood of the voters. Trump also beat Joe Biden handily in the second debate in 2020, almost making up for his disastrous COVID-enhanced performance. 

Prevent defense never works: Trump believes that because he has a big lead, according to all the polls, he shouldn’t risk that lead by engaging in a debate. But who knows if those polls are accurate? And as the old saying goes in professional football, when you deploy a prevent defense strategy, it prevents the defense from working. When a campaign starts acting defensively and stops taking calculated risks, it loses momentum and makes unforced errors. Trump’s decision not to engage with his competitors and allow them to define the battlefield is an unforced error. When you aren’t on offense, you are on the run, in politics and in life.  

Narrowcasting vs. broadcasting: I like Tucker Carlson and I miss his show on Fox News, but here’s the thing. Doing his show on X, the company formerly known as Twitter, is not the same thing as doing a live debate on a broadcast network. This is especially true for older voters, who make up the bulk of the GOP electorate and don’t spend a lot of time on social media.  

Watching the debate on television is much more compelling than watching a pre-taped video on X. The platform is a perfect example of narrowcasting or appealing to a smaller, but more active audience. Most primary voters don’t have time for narrowcasting but have plenty of time to catch a broadcast on the Fox network.   

The stature gap: Trump’s participation in the debate would have revealed the stature gap. Trump is not only a big man physically, but because he is a former president, he commands a huge presence. He would have likely been at center stage and all eyes would have been trained on him every moment. In other words, his presence would have dominated the conversation. While he will still likely be the center of attention, because talking about Trump is good for ratings, his lack of participation will give a huge boost to whoever steps into the breach and looks the most presidential in his absence.  

Jury pool: Trump’s lawyers might not have wanted him to participate because his comments during the debate could have been used against him in a court of law, but there is another side to the legal story. The debate could have given him the best chance to proclaim his innocence to potential jurors in every state and federal jurisdiction where he now faces prosecution. There is no doubt that the various legal witch hunts would have come up for discussion during the debate, and it is there where he could have made a compelling case for his innocence as he condemned the two-tiered justice system that America has devolved into: one system for Republicans like him and one for those like the Biden family and the Black Lives Matter crowd.   

Feehery, a partner at EFB Advocacy, blogs at thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).