Fox News Cancels Republican Debate After Donald Trump Chickens Out

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:50 pm

After Donald Trump chickened out and refused to show up, Fox News was forced to cancel a Republican debate that was scheduled to hold in Utah on Monday.

During an appearance on Fox and Friends, Trump announced that he would not be attending the debate:

https://youtu.be/SDsGugjprz4

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Trump claimed that he had a “major speech” already scheduled for the night of the debate and that he didn’t know that there were going to be more debates. Trump said, “I will say this. I think we’ve had enough debates. I think we’ve had eleven or twelve. I did really well in the last one. I’ve done well in all of the debates.”

Fox News was still going to go ahead with the debate until the John Kasich campaign announced that he would not be participating without Trump.

Kasich campaign strategist John Weaver tweeted:

Without two-thirds of the Republican field, Fox News announced that the debate was canceled:

On Feb. 20, the Republican National Committee announced that a GOP presidential primary debate would be held on March 21 in Salt Lake City. They offered that debate to Fox News Channel to host, provided there were enough candidates actively campaigning. This morning, Donald Trump announced he would not be participating in the debate. Shortly afterward, John Kasich’s campaign announced that without Trump at the debate, Kasich would not participate. Ted Cruz has expressed a willingness to debate Trump or Kasich — or both. But obviously, there needs to be more than one participant. So the Salt Lake City debate is cancelled.

What really happened is that the Ohio loss scared Trump, and he chickened out. For the rest of the primary campaign, one should expect Donald Trump only to do media and events that he has some control over. Trump needs all of the delegates that he can get, so alienating Utah Republicans by backing out of a scheduled debate was the dumbest thing that he could have done.

Beneath all of the bragging and bluster beats the heart of a coward. Donald Trump can’t take the heat, and he is afraid. Trump was afraid to debate Kasich and Cruz on Fox News. As the field for the Republican nomination gets smaller, debates only serve to highlight and expose Trump’s weaknesses. Donald Trump can no longer hide in the debate stage crowd.

Donald Trump is afraid of Fox News that he would rather alienate voters than show up at a debate. Trump is showing that he lacks the backbone, character, and leadership that is required in a president. Donald Trump is a coward who is pretending that he could be president.



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