Multiple sources close to the former president tell AWN that on Wednesday, Trump will not participate in the first Republican presidential debate but would instead sit down for an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
In the last 24 hours, Trump has been telling his closest associates that he has decided against participating in next week’s debate.
According to the sources, the Carlson interview has not yet been scheduled, but it will likely appear at the same time as the debate. The information about the Carlson interview originally appeared in the New York Times.
While Trump’s campaign had been in talks with Carlson about a possible interview as counter programming for the event, it was previously announced by AWN that the president would not be attending the debate.
Trump’s advisers keep mentioning the possibility that the former president will decide at the last minute that he wants to attend the debate, so it’s hard to say for sure.
Fox News settled a massive defamation case with Dominion Voting Systems earlier this year, prompting Trump and Carlson to publicly and privately quarrel with each other and the network.
Given his overwhelming lead in the polls, the former president has openly and privately considered skipping one or both of the first two Republican presidential primary debates. In September, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, will be the site of the second presidential debate.
The first primary debate of the 2024 cycle will take place on Wednesday. It will take place a little more than a week after the former president was indicted for a fourth time, this time for attempting to reverse the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. According to an earlier AWN article, his attorneys and the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis are still working out the specifics of his surrender, which is expected to extend into next week. The deadline for his surrender is August 25.