Trump Challenges ‘Heads of Various Papers’ to Televised Debate on ‘Big Lie’: ‘Ratings Bonanza’

Melissa Sue Gerrits, Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump is ginning for a fight. Specifically, a televised debate with anyone of seeming import to a debate “that the 2020 Election was rigged and stolen.”

Cynics will see this as a naked play for attention and a way to amplify his baseless claims that his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 general election was only the result of a massive and coordinated conspiracy.

“I am willing to challenge the heads of the various papers or even far left politicians, who have perpetuated the Real Big Lie, which is voter irregularities and fraud on a massive and determinative scale,” he wrote. “This includes members of the highly partisan Unselect Committee of Democrats who refuse to delve into what caused the January 6th protest—it was the Fake Election results!”

Trump made the challenge in a Sunday night statement sent out via his Save America PAC newsletter, which has become his go-to communications platform since being kicked off of Twitter.

Trump has recently limited his television appearances to the sorts of super friendly outlets of pro-Trump opinion media that would never challenge the former president about anything. These appearances have become largely predictable and the same kind of warmed-over content we’ve seen for years.

Trump appears to understand that there are long odds of this sort of event ever happening, adding, “I am willing to do it, they will never agree.” He finished with, “If anyone would like a public debate on the facts, not the fiction, please let me know. It will be a ratings bonanza for television!”

So this rather naked plea for attention is both predictable and self-serving.  But the idea of a televised debate to settle this? I mean, I’d watch the shit out of that, though it would settle absolutely nothing. And only keep Trump and his baseless and unproven claims in the mainstream.

Read the complete statement from Trump below:

The Fake News Media cannot stand the fact that so many people in our Country know the truth, that the 2020 Election was rigged and stolen, yet almost every article written contains the words the “Big Lie” or “unsubstantiated facts,” etc., always trying to demean the real results. I am willing to challenge the heads of the various papers or even far left politicians, who have perpetuated the Real Big Lie, which is voter irregularities and fraud on a massive and determinative scale. This includes members of the highly partisan Unselect Committee of Democrats who refuse to delve into what caused the January 6th protest—it was the Fake Election results! While I am willing to do it, they will never agree because they cannot argue that facts in states including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, and others such as New Mexico, where the Democrat Secretary of State changed the voting laws without legislative approval just prior to the Election, making it virtually impossible for the Republican presidential candidate to win. If anyone would like a public debate on the facts, not the fiction, please let me know. It will be a ratings bonanza for television!

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.