'A sign of weakness': WSJ editorial board slams Trump for declining second GOP debate

The Wall Street Journal editorial board on Thursday published list of questions Donald Trump will “eventually” have to answer after the former president scheduled a speech before Detroit union auto workers in lieu of participating in the second Republican primary debate.

Trump advisors on Monday told the New York Times Trump is once again “skipping” the GOP debate “to instead hold his own counterprogramming.” Trump also skipped the first primary debate last month in Milwaukee.

For the Wall Street Journal editorial board, the former president and current Republican frontrunner, “is acting as if he has already won.”

“After skipping the first GOP debate, he is also planning to blow off the second one, scheduled for next week at the Reagan Presidential Library in California,” the board notes. “Instead Mr. Trump will give a speech to union workers in Detroit.”

“Is he worried he’d look his age at 77 next to younger candidates?” the Wall Street Journal editorial board wonders. “To state the obvious, Mr. Trump is running to be President and leader of the free world. Voters deserve to hear him defend his record and his platform.”

On abortion, the editorial board writes, Trump “refuses to explain where in pregnancy he’d draw the line, saying vaguely that ‘we’ll come up with a number.’”

“Mr. Trump owes a serious answer,” the board insists. The same goes for his record on Covid, trade and tariffs.

“John Bolton wrote in his book that Mr. Trump signaled privately he wouldn’t defend Taiwan if China invaded,” the editorial continues. “Is that what he thinks now?”

“And did Mr. Trump really try to delete the security tapes at Mar-a-Lago to hide his classified files, as the strongest indictment against him alleges,” the WSJ demands.

Of Trump’s current refusal to face off with his opponents, the board argues “that’s a sign of weakness, not strength.”

“He’ll have to answer those questions eventually,” the board adds.

Read the full op-ed at the Wall Street Journal.