Serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) seems to take great pleasure in tormenting the Republican party, the very organization that he seeks to become the presidential nominee of. He refuses to commit to attending the first Republican National Committee (RNC) debate debate among the primary contenders to he held this coming Wednesday the 23rd from 9:00pm-11:00pm Eastern time on Fox News or whether, if he does decide to take part, whether he will sign the pledge to support the eventual nominee, whoever that is. At present, eight people have met the donor and polls threshold (Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Doug Burgum, SSAT, Mike Pence, and Chris Christie) and only the first five have signed the pledge. Late news has businessman Perry Johnson (who?) also qualifying for the debate.

It is clear that SSAT has nothing but contempt for the GOP as am independent political entity and thinks that he, as an individual, is the only one that matters and that the GOP’s role is to merely support him. He may well be right in that judgment.

There has been speculation that he will skip the debate but since he is loath to give up the spotlight, yesterday comes reports that he may agree to an interview with Tucker Carlson at the same time as the debate, as a form of counter-programming. Typically, he just drops this as a possibility, not really committing to it, and is likely to be ambivalent right up until almost the last moment, thus keeping everyone off-balance.

As a counter-programming idea, an interview with Carlson seems like a bad idea. Without his platform on Fox News, Carlson is no longer the draw he once was. The new biography of him has been a bust when it comes to sales. His show is not on TV but on Twitter/X or wherever the hell he is and it is not clear how many of SSAT’s supporters have followed him there or even know how to find him on the internet. Furthermore, we pretty much know what to expect from that interview. Carlson, although the Dominion lawsuit revealed him saying that he hated SSAT passionately, will feed him fawning softball questions peppered with racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic overtones and SSAT will continue his self-pitying whining and ranting at his perceived enemies. It is all drearily predictable. At least with the RNC debate we will get to hear from people who have been sidelined by the focus on SSAT and possibly hear something new. It might be actually be better for them if SSAT does not take part, giving them more of the spotlight.

It has been suggested that a better counter-programming idea for for SSAT, who has a deadline of Friday, August 25th to turn himself in to the Atlanta courthouse for processing for the indictment brought against him by the Fulton County DA,is to to do so on Wednesday as close to the debate time as possible and then schedule a rally or news conference immediately afterwards. If he does that, then it is possible that only Fox News will show the debate while all the other media will focus on the SSAT circus.

I think that SSAT will wait until the last minute to decide which will be better for him, to attend the debate or counter-program and if he does decide to attend, the RNC will cravenly allow him in.