Why won’t Trump join the initial presidential debate? Answer is very, very simple: Trump shares the stage with no-one. The mere suggestion that anyone other than he might be considered a candidate is, in his eyes, a major insult.

I think there's a bit more thought behind this than you credit.

Trump knows his audience. He knows they love it when he denigrates and belittles his opposition. This is a classic macho move that he knows he can pull off, because his opposition is both weak politically and spineless personally.

It has also been suggested it's a deliberate snub of Fox News, retaliation for them not towing sufficiently close to the line.

Defendant Trump on $200,000.00 bail, ordered not to contact or intimidate witnesses in Georgia. Gift link to NY Times article.

Any guesses how much bail the judge will set for Seditionist-Traitor-Rapist1 in Fulton County, Georgia? — 180 Proof

Just got back from vacation, looks like 200K, I would have guessed 100K

:up:

Seems like a pittance. SBF had 250 million.

It has symbolic significance, though. I can imagine that DJT will absolutely seethe at having to fork over actual dollars.

dude has already intimidated witnesses. I really hope they hold him to that agreement.

Well with Trump not at the debate, the candidates can talk about REAL issues. The big ones. Like wokeness, critical race theory, trans people, our “depleted” military, and “open borders.”

It might be interesting to watch how they dance around the issue of Trump, desperately trying not to offend the MAGA.

Years from now in the American lexicon you'll have a word Maga as we have caesar but probably with slightly less flattering connotations.

Julius Caesar, more than anybody, is responsible for the death of the Roman Republic, and yet he is the most famous and arguably most admired Roman of all time. That never seemed right to me.

My point exactly except I don't think Maga will be all that much admired.

It's been a bad couple of days for Trump.

Prosecutors: Trump Mar-a-Lago security aide flipped after changing lawyers

A Trump employee who monitored security cameras at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate abruptly retracted his earlier grand jury testimony and implicated Trump and others in obstruction of justice just after switching from an attorney paid for by a Trump political action committee to a lawyer from the federal defender’s office in Washington, prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday.

Georgia’s fake electors acted at Trump’s direction, indicted ex-GOP chair says

David Shafer, former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and one of the 19 defendants in the Georgia election interference case, claimed in a court filing that he and the other Republican electors who tried to falsely certify Donald Trump as the winner in Georgia were acting at the former president's behest.

Meadows told special counsel he could not recall Trump ever declassifying Mar-a-Lago docs

Appearing to contradict former President Donald Trump's primary public defense in the classified documents case, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has told special counsel Jack Smith's investigators that he could not recall Trump ever ordering, or even discussing, declassifying broad sets of classified materials before leaving the White House, nor was he aware of any "standing order" from Trump authorizing the automatic declassification of materials taken out of the Oval Office, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

David Shafer, former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and one of the 19 defendants in the Georgia election interference case, claimed in a court filing that he and the other Republican electors who tried to falsely certify Donald Trump as the winner in Georgia were acting at the former president's behest.

This is very selective reading of the entire court submission, which can be found here: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.310324/gov.uscourts.gand.310324.2669.0.pdf

@Hanover @Ciceronianus Are you familiar with the 1960 Hawaii case and how this differs from the current situation?

EDIT: Never mind. I googled: https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/big-differences-between-1960-hawaii-electors-2020-ga-trump-electors

Years from now in the American lexicon you'll have a word Maga as we have caesar but probably with slightly less flattering connotations. — Benkei

The long history of that hijacked phrase.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_America_Great_Again#:~:text=%22Let's%20make%20America%20great%20again,at%20home%20marked%20by%20stagflation.

"NOBODY HAS EVER FOUGHT FOR ELECTION INTEGRITY LIKE PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP. FOR DOING SO, I WILL PROUDLY BE ARRESTED TOMORROW AFTERNOON IN GEORGIA. GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!"

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/

I can't wait to see his mugshot and perp-walk. It's the end result of their conspiracy theories, their propensity to stretch the plain meaning of language to form a narrative so ridiculous, but so believable to the same people who fell for the Russia hoax, that it will expose why they ought not to have power ever again. The authoritarians are shooting themselves in their jackboot and it's glorious.

I'm gonna need you to sit down, take a breath, listen to this video, and realize that everything is going to be ok...

I am sitting down, frank. You might want to give your imagination a rest for a while because your projections are becoming commonplace.

if he fought for election integrity, then why is he saying that the only presidential election he was ever president during is also the presidential election with the least integrity in the history of the us?

It's not adding up. Surely someone as competent and concerned about election integrity at trump could have done something to ensure that there was election integrity...

MY INTERVIEW WITH TUCKER CARLSON WILL BE AIRED TONIGHT AT 9:00 P.M. “SPARKS WILL FLY.” ENJOY!

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/110938777359431324

Poor cowardly Trump too afraid to attend the debates and resigns himself to the kid's table. :lol:

I am sitting down, frank. You might want to give your imagination a rest for a while because your projections are becoming commonplace. — NOS4A2

My projections have always been commonplace I'll have you know.

Administrators at the state and local level are responsible for running elections. The president isn't.

so how did he fight for it then?

His countless efforts to root out fraud and hold the shadow campaign to account are by now public record.

that sounds less like someone cares about election integrity and more like someone is upset they lost. All that happened AFTER he lost, right? Not before?

that sounds less like someone cares about election integrity and more like someone is upset they lost. All that happened AFTER he lost, right? Not before?

It was before, as well. They were trying to block the efforts to make fundamental changes to how elections were run, all of which was occurring under the noses of everyday Americans.

His countless efforts to root out fraud — NOS4A2

:rofl:

I couldn’t write better jokes.

You mean efforts like this?

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump frankly acknowledged Thursday that he’s starving the U.S. Postal Service of money in order to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, which he worries could cost him the election.

https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-election-2020-ap-top-news-elections-politics-14a2ceda724623604cc8d8e5ab9890ed

We already know you can't write, but you sure can pad it with other people's ideas.