Radio commentator Rush Limbaugh said he wouldn't be surprised if top-polling Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump intends to "blow up" the "predictable" and "stale" televised debate Thursday night.
"The formula's everything to the establishment, because they control it," Limbaugh said on
his daily radio show.
"And that's one thing Trump is not: Controllable. Particularly when it comes to the establishment. So there could be fireworks."
Limbaugh said the fireworks are inevitable "since everybody's gonna watch it, and … the way it's reported afterwards."
"And the last thing Trump wants is for the post-debate analysis to be, 'Donald Trump was also on stage and was heard from. He said X, Y, and Z.' The last thing Trump wants is he was just one of the gang, just one of the 10. So it's bound to be fireworks of some kind. It has to be."
Limbaugh said it would make sense that Trump would challenge the debate format.
"I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Donald Trump's objective is to blow up this whole format," he said. "Because it's predictable. It's stale…. I think at some point, Trump's gonna say how stupid he thinks this is and how unproductive he thinks this is and how basically what a waste of time."
Limbaugh concedes the high-flying real estate billionaire probably won't use those words, "because he's there."
"But he'll talk about how it's not productive toward choosing a candidate, that it just muddies the waters, and it doesn't give anybody enough time to do anything, and there's no way that all 10 people can personally interact with each other," he said.
Fox News moderators of the debate will try to "get good publicity when it's over by credit for asking the right questions or policing the thing well," he pointed out.
"I wouldn't be surprised if Trump … at some point, maybe after he thinks he's scored a big point… would basically start lambasting the whole format and say, 'You know what? This is what is wrong with choosing a president. What does this got to do with anything? We're all up here, and everybody knows that nine out of 10 of these people, eight out of these, are not going anywhere. What are we doing here? This is crazy. All we're gonna do for two or three hours here is tell everybody how rotten each other is? … What are we wasting our time for? Making TV ratings for?' "
"That would be in character," Limbaugh said.
"And how many people do you think would stand up and go, 'Right on!'"
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