Fox News Braces For Uncertain Debate Ratings as Trump and Tucker Plot Counter-Programming

AP Photo/Seth Wenig

The first Republican presidential primary debate, hosted by Fox News and airing Wednesday night, will be all about Donald Trump. But Donald Trump won’t be there.

The former president is boycotting the event – and suggested he wouldn’t attend any of the Republican debates – citing his overwhelming lead in the polls.

The added bonus for Trump is a thumb in the eye of Fox overlord Rupert Murdoch, who the former president has repeatedly accused of harboring insufficient loyalty.

Instead of the debate, Trump sat for an interview with Tucker Carlson, the erstwhile Fox star who now hosts a free program on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“The Tucker interview will air Wednesday evening on Tucker Carlson’s Twitter/X account, and may be posted later to additional platforms,” a source familiar with the planning told Mediaite. “Details still being finalized.”

The interview, which was taped this week and is dropping to coincide with the debate, is intended as additional salt in the wound for Fox executives wary that a Trump-less event will not bring in the major ratings typically expected from these kinds of nights.

“Wednesday’s debate will be all about President Trump even if he personally is not in attendance,” Trump senior adviser Jason Miller told Mediaite. “He leads the Republican primary field by nearly 50 points, he’s beating Joe Biden in general election polling, and all of the GOP candidates will be trying to copy President Trump’s policy ideas.”

Presidential debates are one of the most coveted news events for cable networks. They spend months trying to lock down hosting duties, which reliably send ratings into orbit. In 2015, Fox’s primary debate – with Trump and nine other candidates – drew 24 million viewers, smashing previous records and earning the distinction of being one of the most-watched cable programs ever.

Overall, 2016 was a blockbuster year for debate ratings: the 12 Republican primary events averaged 15 million viewers.

This year, with Trump the overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination, Fox executives acknowledge that a debate between the distant hopefuls won’t pull an audience anywhere near that size – particularly with cord-cutting that has shrunk the audience pie considerably since 2015.

It was not for lack of trying. Fox, which is still struggling to pick up the pieces in the wake of the $787 million settlement with Dominion and ouster of Carlson earlier this year, has made repeated appeals to Trump in the last few months. Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott and president Jay Wallace traveled to Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey to make a pitch over dinner. Bret Baier, the star Fox News anchor who will be moderating the debate alongside Martha MacCallum, called Trump repeatedly to urge him to attend, according to the New York Times.

Beyond the bruised egos and a corporate card that’s one trip to Bedminster poorer, the event comes at a precarious time for the network, which has seen softer numbers in the months since the Dominion settlement and the Carlson ouster. Despite the lull, Fox remains the number one network in cable news.

“They’ll act like everything is amazing,” a high-level Fox News executive told Mediaite. “But they have to be disappointed from a ratings standpoint, especially after trekking to Bedminster for dinner.”

Trump’s refusal to be coaxed to the debate stage in Milwaukee “upset” leadership at Fox, a source close to the former president told Mediaite.

“They pleaded with him to debate,” the source said. “They didn’t change his mind. He’s over it. He doesn’t like Fox.”

That Trump felt confident enough to snub Fox News is a sign of just how successful his hostile takeover of American right has been. At the time of the 2015 debate, Fox News chief Roger Ailes commanded enormous influence over the Republican Party. The Fox executive recalled that at the time, “Ailes was at the head and could call the shots with the various campaigns and the RNC with a great deal of credibility.”

In the years since his death, Fox, along with every other conservative institution and power-player, has ceded control of the movement to Trump. Now, he’s content to humiliate both Fox News, which just had to pay nearly one billion dollars because of a conspiracy theory he concocted, and the RNC, which has begged him to attend the debates and whacked Democrats for not hosting their own.

The debate will not be futile. Despite Trump’s commanding lead in the polls, a lot can happen between now and the first primaries in January. As MacCallum noted in an interview this week, “I don’t think as members of the media or people who watch politics it’s our place to say, ‘Oh, this is over, these people aren’t going to be the nominee.’ It’s way too soon to say that.”

The snub isn’t all about Fox either. Since launching his 2024 campaign, Trump has floated the possibility of skipping the Republican debates. Now, with his polling lead growing and his competitors fighting amongst themselves, Trump has told advisers he feels participating does more for his rivals than his own campaign.

“As far as Trump-world is concerned, the primary is a waste of time and money, and these candidates should drop out and focus on the general election with Trump as the nominee,” the Fox executive told Mediaite. “That said, he is not inclined to go out of his way to do Fox any favors by showing up.”

Still, the executive projected confidence that Trump’s counter-programming gambits — the Carlson interview, plus his planned Thursday surrender in Atlanta to Fulton County authorities on charges related to election subversion — will ultimately fall flat.

“Doesn’t matter,” the executive said, noting the debate will struggle in the ratings no matter what airs across from it. “There is zero interest in these candidates compared to other cycles. End of the day it’s still Twitter. Who cares?”

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