Fox News banned Donald Trump’s deputy from the debate room on Wednesday after the former president refused to come to Milwaukee for the Republican showdown.
Only presidential campaigners participating in the debate will be allowed on Media Row, the area where proxies argue for their candidate and edge out the competition, sources confirmed to .
Trump, who leads the Republican presidential nomination polls, announced Sunday that he will not be participating in the first two debates of the primary season, both of which are sponsored by Fox News.
The retaliation is the latest exchange of blows between the former president and the conservative-leaning news network that has made him famous.
Kimberly Guilfoyle and Donald Trump Jr. will attend the first Republican debate in Milwaukee, despite Fox News banning the former president’s vices from the spin room
Team Trump also plans to have a full on-site presence, including Trump’s eldest son Don Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Kari Lake and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Those Trump surrogates with tickets to the debate itself can still attend, CNN reported, as tickets are distributed by the Republican National Committee.
But Fox controls access to the debate’s media center, where hundreds of reporters will work covering the debate.
Trump deputies are allowed into the spin room when they are guests of media organizations covering the debate. Otherwise they have to stay away. As did other Republicans who did not qualify for the debate.
Post-debate group accreditations are only given to “participating candidates/campaigns,” Fox News wrote in a memo obtained by Axios.
Donald Trump announced Sunday that he would not be participating in either the first or second Republican primary debates — both of which are sponsored by Fox News — despite qualifying for the event and standing in the polls for the GOP presidential nomination at the top.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and Fox News executives urged Trump to attend Wednesday’s event, which included personal pilgrimages to his golf club in Bedminister, New Jersey, to make their pleas in person.
McDaniel even warned Trump that skipping the primary debate means he would give President Joe Biden an excuse to back out of the debate on Trump should they meet again in 2024, the New York Times reported.
Trump reportedly wants to debate Biden, with whom he is almost level in the polls.
Still, that didn’t convince the former president to join at least seven other candidates who qualified for Wednesday’s debate stage.
A Republican Debate sign hangs outside the Fiserv Forum in preparation for the August 24 debate in Milwaukee
Instead, Trump will speak online with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who is still under contract and paid by Fox even though his show was taken off the air.
According to reports, the interview was already recorded.
Even though Donald Trump has stated that he will not be on the debate stage, his presence will be felt.
Moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum have said they plan to quiz the other candidates on the numerous charges the former president is facing.
“It’ll be interesting to see how the other candidates react to that,” said Baier, the network’s chief political moderator and moderator and editor-in-chief of Special Report.
“In the GOP primary, we saw these charges increase his poll ratings and fundraising,” Baier told Deadline. “How others react to it and how differently they deal with it will be part of this primary and this debate.”
Trump will continue to dominate the news cycle in the days leading up to the debate. On Monday night, he announced that on Thursday – the day after the debate – he had agreed to a call by authorities in Atlanta, where he is accused of trying to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.
Former President Donald Trump (left) does not plan to participate in the first Republican primary debate and will instead sit down for an online interview with former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson (right).
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene will also be in Milwaukee to vote for Donald Trump
Kari Lake was at the Iowa State Fair (above) for Trump and will also be in Milwaukee
Trump has argued that he doesn’t need to stand alongside the other candidates for the Republican presidential nominations, who lag far behind him in the polls.
“A lot of people are asking if I’m going to join DEBATES or not?” he posted on Truth Social on Friday. “People know my record, one of the BEST of all time, so why should I debate?” I AM YOUR MAN. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’
Should Trump actually create a counter-program to the debate by appearing alongside Carlson, it would result in an epic battle for viewers during the first major event of the primary season.
In response, the Fox team is considering including video clips of Trump in its debate questions, according to the New York Times.
Trump was indicted for the fourth time last week. This time, he faces charges in Georgia for interference in the state’s 2020 election results. He’s also facing two federal charges — one for possessing classified documents and one for election interference — and New York charges related to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels
Meanwhile, Republican candidates for the 2024 race are preparing for Wednesday’s GOP presidency primary debate at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The other contestants who qualified are Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Mike Pence, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott and Doug Burgum. Asa Hutchinson, Francis Suarez and Perry Johnson have all claimed to qualify, but the Republican National Committee has not confirmed they have met all of the qualifications.
To participate in the debate, candidates must meet a donor threshold (40,000 unique contributors, including 200 each from 20 states) and a polling threshold (at least 1 percent support in three qualifying national polls, or two qualifying national polls plus qualifying polls from two states). with early voting: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina). They must also sign a pledge of support for the eventual Republican nominee, whoever it may be.