Trump Skips GOP Debate, Sits Down With Tucker Carlson to Attack Biden and Call 2020 Election 'Rigged'

While eight of his Republican rivals took the stage in Milwaukee on Wednesday night, Donald Trump was somewhere else entirely. The former president, still the front-runner for the GOP nomination, had recorded a 46-minute interview with Tucker Carlson in Bedminster, New Jersey, and it was posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, timed to land alongside the debate.

Trump opened by acknowledging the empty podium. He told Carlson he felt it was more appropriate not to take part, and that he had taken a pass, as Carlson had probably noticed. Earlier in the week he had announced on social media that he would skip the event, pointing to what he called legendary poll numbers that put him 46 points ahead of his Republican opponents. He also asked why he should sit for an hour or two and be harassed by people who, in his words, shouldn't be running for president, on a network not particularly friendly to him.

He singled out two of the candidates by name: former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Of Christie, Trump said he left New Jersey with an 8% approval rating and now runs solely on the basis of getting Trump. He argued that news networks are losing credibility, and predicted the interview would draw bigger ratings on X than the debate, which he called his competition.

The host has his own recent history. Carlson left Fox News in April, in the wake of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former producer and the network's $787.5 million defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.

The backdrop to the conversation is legal. Trump has been indicted four times this year, over his personal business dealings, his handling of classified documents, and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He argues the charges are political and amount to election interference. He is due to surrender Thursday to Fulton County authorities in Georgia, where he faces 13 counts ranging from violating the state's racketeering act to conspiring to file false documents. According to court documents, he agreed to a bond of $200,000.

Carlson asked whether Trump, who remains under Secret Service protection, worried for his safety, running through the protests, two impeachments, and now indictments, and asking why they wouldn't try to kill him. Trump called his opponents savage animals and sick people, noted that his poll numbers have risen since the indictments, and dismissed the four cases as trivia and nonsense.

Much of the interview was aimed at President Biden, whom Trump called a Manchurian candidate, the most corrupt president the country has had, and the most compromised. He claimed Biden is afraid to tell Russia and China to get out of Cuba, criticized his age and ability, and ran through open borders, high taxes, high interest rates, gas stoves and electric cars. He said the war in Ukraine would never have started under him, and cited his relationships with Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. He also complained that the Panama Canal was given away for a dollar.

On the 2020 election, he repeated that it was rigged, saying COVID was used to cheat, that judges didn't want to look, and that he has so much evidence. He called for paper ballots, voter ID and same-day voting, and said mail-in ballots invite massive cheating. On January 6, he said he and former Vice President Mike Pence have not spoken in a long time, that he was very disappointed in him, and that Pence had the right to send votes back to state legislatures. He claimed Republicans in name only later joined Democrats to change the law. He called the crowd that day the largest he had ever addressed and said they were told to go peacefully and patriotically. Asked whether the country is heading toward civil war, he described a level of passion and hatred he has never seen, which he said is probably a bad combination.

He also went after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, arguing her case amounts to saying he can't criticize an election, and pointing to Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams as people who could be similarly charged. Asked for a first priority if re-elected, he named the border: removing criminals he said had been let in, and sealing it except for legal entry. He said he built almost 500 miles of wall and planned 200 more.

Thursday's surrender in Atlanta is the next marker, and it will test how a front-runner who skipped the stage fares as the primary season moves on.