Trump Chickens Out of Second Debate While Ranting Incoherently on Fox News

Following his disastrous performance during the first presidential debate with Joe Biden, it isn’t surprising that Donald Trump has now declared that he will not participate in the second debate. He knows that every poll has shown him falling even farther behind Biden since the first debate, including the one by his favorite pollster, Rasmussen.

Donald Trump Chicken

Trump’s reelection prospects didn’t improve after Vice-President Mike Pence got creamed by Sen. Kamala Harris in their debate Wednesday night. So when the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced that the next debate would be held with the candidates participating remotely, Trump jumped at the chance to use that as an excuse to bail out. The CPD made the change “In order to protect the health and safety of all involved.” That’s a perfectly reasonable adjustment considering that Trump is currently suffering from COVID-19 and has been recklessly exposing others to it.

There are at least 34 close associates to Trump who have contracted the coronavirus. It would be foolhardy to get anywhere near the SuperSpreader-in-Chief for the foreseeable future. But Trump’s exploitation of this is further evidence of his cowardice. He made his intentions clear on Fox News (of course) during an “interview” with Fox’s Senior Trump-Fluffer, Maria Bartiromo (video below), saying that:

“I heard that the [Presidential Debate] Commission, a little while ago, changed the debate style, and that’s not acceptable to us. I beat him in the first debate, according to the polls that I’ve seen. But I beat him easily. I felt I beat him easily. I think he felt it too. He wouldn’t answer any question and he had the protection of Chris Wallace all night long. I thought Chris Wallace was a disaster. But I beat him in the first debate.”

Trump’s psychotic delusion that he won the first debate is typical of someone suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Every poll taken after the debate found that it was Biden who had beaten his unhinged opponent. Yet Trump continues to imagine himself victorious, while whining that everyone, including Wallace, a 17 year veteran of Fox News, is against him. Following the first debate Trump made the ludicrous assertion that Wallace is controlled by the radical left.” When Bartiromo sought to affirm that he would not participate in the second debate, Trump replied:

“No. I’m not going to waste my time at a virtual debate. That’s not what debating is all about. You sit behind a computer and do a debate. It’s ridiculous. And then they cut you off whenever they want. I have a host [Steve Scully of C-SPAN] who I always thought was a nice guy, but I see he’s a Never-Trumper.”

So just to be clear, Trump is saying that he is virulently opposed to doing remote communications in the midst of remotely communicating with Bartiromo for an hour long segment on Fox News. And he does these segments frequently with other Fox Always-Trumpers like Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, and the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends. But doing essentially the same thing during a deadly pandemic for which he is Patient Zero in Washington, crosses the line for him.

There were some other batty moments deserving of some attention that occurred during his bit with Bartiromo, who has more than proven that she is a fully indoctrinated Trump cultist. For instance…

  • Trump says “I don’t think I’m contagious at all,”
    Which, not being a doctor, isn’t his call to make.
  • Trump suggested that he got Covid-19 from Gold Star families.
    Because why not blame it on the troops that he thinks are “losers” and “suckers”?
  • Trump tells Bartiromo he shut down stimulus talks because he didn’t “want to play games.”
    Which is, in fact, playing games.
  • Trump tells Attorney General Bill Barr that Clinton, Obama, and Biden should be indicted.
    For unspecified (and nonexistent) crimes.
  • Trump whines that his FBI Director Chris has “been disappointing.”
    Because he won’t go along with persecuting Trump’s enemies.
  • Trump lied (again) about getting $28 billion from China in tariffs.
    It was actually zero dollars.

And if that isn’t enough, Trump weighed in on the Harris/Pence debate with his trademark hostility and misogyny. After disparaging Harris as “a monster,” Trump lashed out in a thoroughly deranged frenzy saying that…

“I thought that wasn’t even a contest last night. She was terrible. She was…I don’t think you can get worse. And totally unlikeable. And she is. She’s a communist.”

Adding later that…

“Biden won’t make it two months as president. He’s not mentally capable of being president. You know that. Everybody knows that.”

It’s no wonder that Trump doesn’t want to debate Biden again. He knows that he can’t measure up to a sane, competent, and compassionate public servant who is popular with the American people. Trump knows that he doesn’t have control of the facts or the cognitive ability to engage in a substantive discourse with someone who does.

So Trump is running away. Which is his standard practice for dealing with difficult situations, particularly those that he can’t control. He is the proverbial bully who crumbles like a stale cracker when confronted. But in Trump’s case, unfortunately for America, he will try to leave as big a trail of destruction in his wake as he scurries off to his bunker.

UPDATE: Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, is now asking to move the second debate to October 22, and the third to October 29. But’s just five days before the election and Biden is probably going to be pretty busy then. This is a desperation move by Trump to recover from his cowardly attempt to bail out.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.