In the 2016 campaign for the White House, former President Donald Trump turned Republican primary debates into live TV events that drew record audiences

to for

Fox and CNN.

But like a star walking away from a hit TV show, Trump is skipping the first debate of the 2024 Republican primary season that will air Aug. 23 from Milwaukee on Fox News, according to multiple reports.

The New York Times

citing anonymous sources,

said Trump could counterprogram the debate by giving an interview with ou

S

Ted former Fox News host Tucker Carlson on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. The Trump campaign has not confirmed that plan.

Trump, who is well ahead of his competition for the nomination in the polls, has suggested not running

on the Fox broadcast

.

Fox news

has no comment does not comment

on Trump’s status or whether it will take legal action against Carlson, who continues to be paid by the network after being taken off the air on April 24.

in June earlier

sent a cease and desist letter to Carlson, saying his online programs on X are in violation of the contract that pays him more than $15 million a year and runs through 2024.

Trump has spoken

are

irritation at the coverage of him on Fox News, although allegiance to him has been paid

are

some of his on-air talent led the network to pay a $787.5 million settlement in a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.

The voting software company claimed it was corrupted by repeated Fox News

ly

Press

shades of

Trump’s false allegations of fraud in the 2020 election. Trump has been charged in federal court and in the state of Georgia for his attempts to overturn the election.

Despite the damaging publicity of the Dominion case, Fox News has maintained its leadership position in cable news. The network saw its ratings plummet in the spring following the departure of top-rated star Carlson.

But those numbers have risen

backup

backup since the

network overhauled overhaul

the prime-time lineup in July, with Jesse Watters taking over Carlson’s 8 p.m. Eastern Time time slot.

As for the debate, Fox News Washington anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, who will be the moderators in Milwaukee, have known for weeks that Trump may not appear

. They will be ready and prepared

to go on without him.

“We are always ready”,

said

Doug Rohrbeck, senior vice president for Washington news and politics for Fox News,

said in an interview this week

. “We are preparing two different overviews where we will have two sets of questions. And one with Trump, and then one without Trump.”

Either way, Trump wants to be a major talking point among the candidates, including Florida governor. Ron DeSantis, former governor of New Jersey. Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence, former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

“He’s an important element in this discussion because he’s way ahead of the game right now,” MacCallum said in a recent interview. “He’s an elephant in the room whether he’s in the room or not.”

One of the reasons Trump would want to avoid the debate is that his denials of the 2020 election result, which have continued even after the indictments, would be pushed back by MacCallum and Baier.

(Even Carlson mocked Trump privately in 2020, according to private messages revealed by the Dominion case, though he downplayed the January 6, 2021 riot, saying the attack on the Capitol was by Trump supporters

initiated by government agents

).

During the post-election period when Fox News got into legal hot water, Baier and MacCallum consistently reported that President Biden had won and had not succumbed to the conspiracy theories presented by network commentators. Baier’s texts and emails, revealed in the evidence gathered in the Dominion case, showed that he was alarmed by the statements of some of his pro-Trump colleagues.

“I don’t think we’re going down a rabbit hole to settle 2020 again,” MacCallum said of the debate. “I’m not shy about holding people to the facts.”

(Even Carlson mocked Trump privately in 2020, according to private messages revealed by the Dominion case, though he downplayed the January 6, 2021 riot, saying the attack on the Capitol was by Trump supporters

initiated by government agents

).

Fox News would

evidently

could benefit from a ratings stance if Trump changes his mind and decides to show up. But even if he does, it will be hard to replicate the debates’ record numbers

.

in 2016.

Fox News drew a whopping 24 million viewers for the first Republican debate in that campaign cycle, followed by 23 million for the second game.

which was broadcast

CNN. But that was one

different

era of television, before streaming and cable-cutting turned the TV business upside down.

When Fox News airs the first

2024

Republican primary debate on Wednesday, it will have 20 million fewer households than in 2016.

Like it

every cable network has it

has

felt the impact of consumers waiving subscriptions to pay TV.

Fox News accommodates cord cutters.

i

t will stream the debate on its website and make it available for free, without a pay-TV subscription. The stream will also be available on Fox News streaming platform Fox Nation.