Will Trump show for the first GOP debate?

The first Republican presidential candidates’ debate in Milwaukee is just over a month away, and the frontrunner for the Republican nomination says he will not attend. 

“Why would I give them time to make statements?,” former President Donald Trump told Reuters last month. “Why would I do that when I’m leading them by 50 points and 60 points?”

There is only one thing that can force Trump onto the debate stage in Milwaukee next month — his ego. Given his need for the spotlight, the odds are good that he will be there.

Welcome to the new age of Republican presidential primary debates. Without Trump, the big audience disappears. With Trump, the audience disappears for any other candidate to offer a vision for the future of the party. 

The current drama surrounding the first GOP debate is also a window into all that ails Republicans in Congress. In the House, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) offered a revealing x-ray of the sickness when recently asked if Trump would be the best nominee in 2024. “Is he the strongest to win the election? I don’t know that answer,” he replied.

He was later chastised for speaking the truth and had to backtrack. The Speaker was reduced to mumbling about Trump being stronger today than he was in 2016 but still not endorsing him.

McCarthy fears losing his job as Speaker if he offends Trump and the 60 House Republicans who have endorsed Trump.

The Speaker’s weak hand reveals that no Republican is able to demand, in the name of party unity, that Trump attend debates or pledge to support the candidate who wins the GOP nomination.

The candidates running against him are caught in a trap, because many of them don’t want to support him if he is the nominee.

“It’s only in the era of Donald Trump that you need somebody to sign something on a pledge,”  former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said recently. “So, I think it’s a bad idea.”

“Nobody is entitled to this nomination,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) recently told a conservative talk radio host. “You have got to earn the nomination.” I’ll be at all the debates because the American people deserve to hear from us directly about our vision for the country and about how we’re going to be able to beat Joe Biden.” 

The troubled debate is prime evidence of a party operating in Trump’s shadow. Every other candidate is being buried under the weight of loyalty oaths to Trump’s populist cult of personality and the big television ratings he can generate.

Trump remains the center of attention on the debate stage because he is the centerpiece in the right-wing echo chamber of social media and talk radio. Never mind that his polarizing image led to Republican losses and underperformances in congressional races in 2018, 2020 and 2022.

That record of failure is not Trump’s focus. He is focused on payback for his 2020 defeat, for being twice impeached, for his indictments and for all the former allies, including former Vice President Mike Pence (R), who now feel free to criticize him.

He sees no advantage in sharing the debate stage or any other spotlight with any Republican who is not locked in his grip. Nor does he show any interest in advancing more thoughtful Republicans with greater appeal to suburban voters.

Trump’s self-serving calculations leave the party unable to develop new voices. To the contrary, his ego-driven agenda is a killer for Republicans running for any office in 2024, because Trump is pumping up voter turnout among the legions of anti-Trump Democrats.

Trump’s refusal (so far) to pledge to support whoever wins the 2024 GOP presidential primaries is a reminder of his recent record of failed endorsements.

His demands produced weak candidates in recent Senate races, leading to defeats in races the GOP was expected to win.

When Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned last year that “candidate quality matters” in Senate races, this surely included candidates’ ability to perform in a debate setting. By that measure, Georgia Senate Candidate Herschel Walker stood as proof of Trump’s selection of poor candidates, with his alarmingly poor performance on the debate stage. 

Note that McConnell has not endorsed Trump.

Again, no Republican dares to tell the truth about the damage Trump is doing to the party.

Speaker McCarthy, for example, knows that with the polarizing, twice-indicted Trump as the nominee, Republicans are likely to lose their majority in the House. Republicans have 18 House members in districts won by President Biden in 2020.

The odds of Republicans losing the House have gone up. The Supreme Court ruled last month that Alabama’s legislature had violated the Voting Rights Act with its pro-Republican redistricting plan. The new plan is likely to result in one additional district that will likely be held by Democrats.

The same will likely happen in Louisiana.

In New York state, an appeals court ruled last week that new congressional districts have to be redesigned. Again, this is likely to lead to more Democrats in the House.

Trump is offering no help. And even if he shows up for the debate, he has a bad record.

His constant interruptions of Biden in the 2020 debates prompted Biden to let out an exasperated “will you shut up, man? This is so unpresidential.” 

Juan Williams is an author and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.