Trump: I'll be at the CNN debate without the $5 million

As expected, the CNN Republican presidential debate on December 15th will include the front-runner, Donald Trump. Earlier in the week, Trump suggested that he might demand $5 million from CNN as a recognition of his drawing power, and that he would either distribute it to veterans groups or demand that CNN do so instead. Yesterday, he told the Washington Post’s Robert Costa that he’ll be there regardless of the monetary arrangements, but that he’s not looking forward to it:

Donald Trump said Thursday that he is unexcited about the upcoming primary debate and irritated by CNN’s coverage of his campaign, but he confirmed that he will appear at the network’s GOP forum scheduled for Dec. 15 in Las Vegas.

“When you’re leading in the polls, I think it’s too big of a risk to not do the debate,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post at Trump National Golf Club in the Virginia suburbs west of Washington. “I don’t think I have the kind of leverage I’d like to have in a deal, and I don’t want to take the chance of hurting my campaign. So, I’ll do the debate.”

The Republican front-runner’s decision comes after days of hedging and complaints over the lack of compensation he has received for being a ratings boon for hosts of primary-season debates.

Trump’s right about the risk for a front-runner in skipping a debate — at least under normal circumstances. For one thing, it leaves his competitors with the stage to themselves, giving them more opportunity to speak to voters. It would also allow them to use Trump as a punching bag all night long … at least theoretically.

In this case, though, those risks would have been somewhat limited. There are too many candidates on stage to have Trump’s absence add much significant stage time to anyone else; in fact, Trump hasn’t taken up much time in the recent debates anyway. Besides, the other candidates seem oddly uninterested in using Trump as a punching bag anywhere, let alone on the debate stage. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are too busy attacking each other, Jeb Bush is busy attacking Rubio, and Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina are attacking Hillary Clinton, and Ben Carson isn’t attacking anyone at all. Only John Kasich has been attacking Trump, but he’s made such a mess of the effort that the only damage has been to Kasich himself.

The real risk for Trump, as I wrote on Tuesday, would have been to his own reputation as a master negotiator if he had pressed this demand to an ultimatum. CNN would never have gone along with it, as CNN president Jeff Zucker made clear:

When asked about Trump’s musing about a fee, Zucker said he would not entertain the idea. “We do not pay candidates to appear at debates,” he said.

So Trump would have had a couple of unpleasant choices. Either he had to run the risk of not showing up — and that might have driven ratings even higher, with curiosity about what would happen in his absence — or show up and admit defeat. Better to back down and complain about media maltreatment rather than push the issue to that breaking point.

This wasn’t a terribly serious threat in the first place, but the episode does raise another question. Would a master dealmaker really float this demand in an off-the-cuff manner at a major public event, with no plan or will to back it up? Given that Trump’s negotiating skill is his primary claim to experience for the presidency, it seems like a poor way to showcase it.