According to The New York Times, Trump has met with his advisors and may sit out the 2020 General Election debates.
Mr. Trump has told advisers that he does not trust the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonprofit entity that sponsors the debates, the two people said.
Less of a concern for Mr. Trump than who will emerge as the Democratic nominee is which media personality will be chosen as the debate moderator, according to people in contact with him.
Apparently in Trump’s 2016 debates with Hillary Clinton, he claimed he had an intentional disadvantage to her. Trump had a defective microphone and that is what caused him to lose the debate, not his performance but the defective mic.
It turned out there was a technical malfunction with the mic that affected the volume of his voice during that debate, in September 2016. Even though the commission acknowledged Trump had a defective mic, he still lost the debate, regardless, and never stated publicly that the commission had indeed recognized the problem with his defective mic.
The Times also reports that Trump’s debate team lead by Giuliani (first mistake) took issue with the commission over where to “seat women who had accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault or sexual harassment.”
The Trump campaign has not commented on this but “Clinton aides said they expected Trump to participate in at least one 2020 debate, despite the president’s hints that he would refuse. ‘Not doing any would not be strategically smart,’ said Philippe Reines, a longtime Clinton adviser, who predicted that ‘he’ll bluff that he won’t do any with the goal of only having to do one.’”
