Donald Trump's decision to drop out of the Fox News/Google GOP presidential debate Thursday night could prove a "real opportunity" for Ted Cruz, former UN Ambassador John Bolton believes.
"It may be he is the focus now that Donald Trump is not there, but I think that plays to one of his greatest strengths as a debater," Bolton, who is now a commentator for Fox News, said on the
"Outnumbered" program.
"He's like a chess expert who can play 15 games of chess at once. Debating six other people simultaneously, I don't think, will be a problem for Ted Cruz. If I were the other people I would be more worried taking him on directly than taking on absent Donald Trump."
But overall, Bolton said, he does not believe the debates, as they are set up, are actually debates at all, but instead, they're "serial press conferences."
"Just as in press conferences, you only get a little bit out in terms of an answer as opposed to well-formulated thought, which is very hard to do in debates," said Bolton.
But he does like Cruz's challenge to Trump to engage in a one-on-one debate, saying that they could exchange views and have an "informed debate, not a press conference."
The same would go for other candidates like Rand Paul and Chris Christie, who would be in a "better position politically today" than they are if they'd had a series of three or four one-on-one debates.
"They obviously disagree on many things," Bolton said. "It would be an informed debate."
And even with Trump being gone, the redistribution for time would be fairly limited.
"I just don't think this is a format that allows for serious debate, especially [since] establishment candidates in their own campaigns have been following a policy of clubbing each other like baby seals in the hopes one will emerge to challenge Cruz and Trump," said Bolton.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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