With Fox News televising a debate among Republican candidates this Thursday, radio host Rush Limbaugh thinks Donald Trump may “blow up” the event with “fireworks” because of its “stale, stupid” formula.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump’s objective is to blow up this whole format, because it’s predictable, it’s stale,” Limbaugh said Monday on his national broadcast. “I think at some point, Trump’s just gonna say how stupid he thinks this is, and how unproductive he thinks this is.”
“He’ll talk about how it’s not productive toward choosing a candidate, that it just muddies the waters and it doesn’t give anybody enough time to do anything, and there’s no way that all 10 people can personally interact with each other. Then you’ve got the moderators trying to interject and keep control of the thing, and trying to make names for themselves, too, even though they deny that.”
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Limbaugh noted Trump might break out of the format after he thinks he’s scored a big point.
“I don’t think he would do this if he thinks he’s not doing well,” he explained.
“I think he would only do something like this from a position of perceived strength and he would basically start lambasting the whole format and say, ‘You know what? This is what’s wrong with choosing a president! What does this got to do with anything? We’re all up here, everybody knows that nine out of 10 of these people aren’t going anywhere. What are we doing here? This is crazy! All we’re gonna do for two or three hours here is tell everybody how rotten each other is. It’s crazy. It’s not gonna matter a hill of beans at the end of the day. What are wasting our time here for? Making TV ratings for other people.’ Or something like this. I mean that would be in character. And how many people do you think would stand up and go, ‘Right on!'”
Limbaugh claims many conservative voters in the Republican Party are often disillusioned after debates take place because, “A northeastern liberal moderate establishment candidate gets the nomination. And if not a northeastern liberal, then an Arizona moderate or liberal. But an establishment candidate gets it. And the conservative candidates all seem to winnow themselves out. I don’t see Trump – as front and center as he is, as dominating as he is – willing, permitting himself to be seen as an equal among 10. By shutting up when he’s supposed to shut up. By not speaking when he’s not supposed to speak.”
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“I’m not saying any of it’s going to be disrespectful,” Limbaugh continued. “I’m saying it’s going to be like everything else he’s doing in the campaign. It’s gonna be fresh, it’s gonna be new. It’s gonna be, to use the cliché, a breath of fresh air. And people are going to be applauding it, except the Drive-Bys and the Establishment Media who, when it’s over, are gonna wring their hands and worry about what does this mean for our politics.
“The formula’s everything to the Drive-Bys. The formula’s everything to the Establishment. Because they control it. And that’s one thing Trump is not. Controllable. Particularly when it comes to the Establishment. So, it could be fireworks.”
Limbaugh postulated if he’s wrong and the debate has few eruptions, it’s going to be considered “a yawner,” and “the Establishment Media is going to claim that their Establishment Candidates did the best.”
That’s another thing Trump has to consider, Limbaugh concluded.
“As a lone-wolf candidate, as a guy who’s busting out of formulas, and is not being contained by them, it’s incumbent on him to step out and somehow control not only what happens during the debate, but the message afterwards. …
“The last thing Trump wants is for the post-debate analysis to be: ‘Donald Trump was also on stage and was heard from … .’ The last thing Trump wants is that he was just one of the gang, just one of the 10. So, it’s bound to be fireworks of some kind. It has to be. And the real question for me is: Are the other nine ready for what may be headed their way?”
The Fox News debate for the top 10 polling Republican candidates is slated to air at 9 p.m. Eastern. The network will also broadcast a 5 p.m. Eastern debate for the seven candidates who are in bottom part of the polls.
Meanwhile, the first televised debate takes place Monday night in Manchester, New Hampshire, to be broadcast on C-SPAN at 7 p.m. Eastern
Trump has decided not to participate in the event which is not sanctioned by the Republican National Committee, assessing he will not get the local newspaper’s endorsement after an editorial critical of his comments about Sen. John McCain’s status as a war hero, CNN reported.