Cancel future Republican presidential debates, Trump advisor says ahead of Miami event

Donald Trump won’t participate in the November Republican presidential debate in Miami, his campaign confirmed on Thursday, marking the third consecutive time that the former president and frontrunner has declined to debate his primary rivals.

At the same time, Chris LaCivita, a senior adviser to Trump’s campaign, called on the Republican National Committee to scrap all future primary debates so that the party and its candidates can coalesce behind Trump and turn their focus to defeating President Joe Biden in 2024.

“The RNC should immediately put an end to any further primary debates so we can train our fire on Crooked Joe Biden and quit wasting time and money that could be going to evicting Biden from the White House,” LaCivita said in a statement.

The debate in Miami is slated for Nov. 8, though an exact location hasn’t been announced yet.

A handful of candidates are expected to be in Florida in the days before the debate; Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum are scheduled to speak at the Florida Freedom Summit in Kissimmee on Nov. 4.

Trump has also invited Florida Republican Party executive committee members to an event at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach on Nov. 9, according to a copy of the invitation.

The posturing from the Trump campaign came just after seven of his primary challengers met at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. on Wednesday for the second RNC-sanctioned debate.

Instead of attending that debate, Trump traveled to Michigan where he spoke at a non-union auto parts company amid an ongoing United Auto Workers strike. He also sat for an interview with the conservative Daily Caller, which first reported that Trump would not participate in the debate in Miami.

Trump’s absence from the debate stage on Wednesday night drew the derision of some of his primary rivals, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who deployed a sharper tone toward the former president than he has throughout most of his campaign.

“Donald Trump is missing in action,” DeSantis said during the debate. “He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt.”

Trump has so far appeared unbothered by his primary challengers’ efforts to taunt him into debating. He and his allies have repeatedly argued that his staggering polling lead – which currently sits at more than 40 percentage points, according to the RealClearPolitics national average – effectively exempts him from having to participate in the debates.

Trump has also taken issue with a requirement that candidates sign a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee, regardless of who it is, in order to qualify for the debates.