Tuesday’s first Democratic presidential primary debate will be a low-ratings snoozefest, according to Donald Trump – because he won’t be on the stage in Las Vegas.
And a CNN executive is hinting that he might be completely right.
‘I think people are going to turn it on for a couple of minutes and then fall asleep,’ The Donald said Monday morning on ‘Fox and Friends.’
The debate will air on CNN and feature Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton at center-stage.
‘I don’t want to say this in a braggadocious way, but a person at CNN and a couple of other people said, ‘We have to put Donald Trump in this debate. We’re going to die with it’,’ Trump claimed.
‘Let’s see,’ he said. ‘I don’t think they’ll do badly, because there is a curiosity factor. I don’t think they’re going to do great, and I think a lot of people will turn off after a little while.’
The Republican field has already endured two debate grillings, which drew audiences of 24 million and 23 million – largely on the strength of the Trump factor, as gawkers flocked to their TVs hoping to see either a political revolution or a real-time train wreck.
The Sept. 16 CNN debate was the network’s most-watched program ever.
CNN Washington Bureau Chief Sam Feist doesn’t seem to be expecting a repeat performance.
He told Politico on Monday that audience numbers for the first two GOP debates were ‘an anomaly in a highly unusual Republican nomination cycle.’
‘While I won’t predict ratings for this debate, we expect the audience to be significantly smaller,’ Feist said.
Appearing along with Clinton on Tuesday will be Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee.
Only Sanders has posed a serious challenge so far to the former secretary of state. Vice President Joe Biden hasn’t accepted CNN’s invitation to participate as he mulls enternig the race himself.
Clinton is ‘nervous about her whole future,’ Trump claimed Monday. ‘She’s got a lot of problems, you know, beyond the debate. I think she’s got a lot of problems.’
Hillary, he said, ‘hasn’t been a great debater in the past, but I think she just has to hold. I can’t imagine Bernie Sanders will beat her.’
Trump also expressed surprise that the Democratic Party has held on to Clinton as its standard-bearer amid legal and ethical problems related to her private email server that held classified information while she was secretary of state.
‘I can’t imagine she’s going to be allowed to run based on the email scandal,,’ Trump said.
‘But she probably will because the Democrats are going to take care of her.’
He said Biden is looking more and more like a candidate, ‘going around all over the place shaking everybody’s hand.’
‘Every time I look on television he’s at a different event, so that would indicate he is doing it. But when I look at the poll numbers, I don’t see him doing very well right now, even though it’s early.’The Fox hosts asked Trump to handicap President Barack Obama’s interview on the CBS program ‘
Fox’s morning hosts asked Trump to handicap President Barack Obama’s Sunday night interview on the CBS program ’60 Minutes.’
Obama predicted that the ‘publicity seeker’ Trump won’t succeed him in the Oval Office, saying that he is ‘the classic reality TV character and, at this early stage, it’s not surprising that he’s gotten a lot of attention.’
The Donald was not amused.
‘I watched his performance last night and I thought it was terrible,’ he said.
‘It was sad, because everything is negative, you know, nothing positive. I thought it was a little bit sad because there was so much negativity.’
Read more: THE DAILY MAIL
{Matzav.com Newscenter}
na nach nachm nachman m’uman