I've watched people (especially at Instapundit) go back and forth on why Trump needs to be in the first debate and why he doesn't need to be there. To the extent that any polls can be trusted, Trump holds such a commanding lead that there's really no reason for him to debate. He's at around 60% in the GOP polls, with second-place Ron DeSantis at around 18% or so (different polls show Vivek Ramaswamy in second place). People obviously and overwhelmingly want Trump, so these debates really are about who gets the VP spot.
One of the major reasons to get Trump on the debate stage, though, is to hold his feet to the fire on some of his poor decisions, e.g., his many dubious staffing choices, his advocacy of the COVID "vaccine" (which most of the Republican/conservative base ended up rejecting), his bizarre praise of Andrew Cuomo, and a host of other bad calls during his 2016-2020 term. Trump might appear at a later debate, but he's skipping the upcoming one. Styx suggested that now is the perfect moment for Trump finally to get back on Twitter—to fire off a mean tweet or two while the debate is happening to show that the former president is watching the debate and has his own answers. Styx also noted that Trump's absence from this first debate might still result in the debate's being largely about Trump as each candidate tries to show how he'd be a different president. It'd actually be interesting and refreshing for the debaters to make no mention of Trump at all, but that's not really possible, is it.
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