Trump’s declaration on Truth Social Sunday that he will “not be doing the debates” because the voters already know him prompted Doocy’s buzzed-about take just days before Republican candidates clash for the first time onstage.
“Unfortunately by skipping the debates, Donald Trump may actually be helping Joe Biden because he’s giving Joe Biden an excuse for not debating Donald Trump,” Doocy said in a clip shared by Mediaite.
“That’s one of the things that Ronna McDaniel told the former president when she was trying to get him to do the first debate,” he added, mentioning the Republican National Committee chair. “But he said, ‘Nope, not gonna to do it.’”
“I don’t know how that would be, though. How could Joe Biden rationalize not going against Donald Trump?” co-host Brian Kilmeade said.
“Because if Donald Trump says, ‘Everybody knows me, I don’t need to do it,’ then Joe Biden does, ‘Everybody knows me! I’m the president,’” Doocy said.
Co-host Ainsley Earhardt chimed in that Biden would love to have an excuse to avoid debating Trump.
“I mean, if he doesn’t want to do the debate, I could totally understand it because he can’t get through a sentence,” Kilmeade argued in a snipe at Biden.
Trump’s campaign strategy in the face of four indictments may have just become clearer now that he intends to avoid primary debates.
However, The New York Times reported that Trump’s advisers actually see the former president debating Biden as a key component of him winning back the White House.
The RNC, on the other hand, has been searching for a more favorable alternative to a debate run by the traditional organizer, the Commission on Presidential Debates, the Times added.
Biden had already ripped Trump for skipping Milwaukee’s GOP debate set for Wednesday because “he knows Wisconsin is a state that reflects his failed leadership.”