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Hey, good morning. I'm Playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Wednesday, May 3rd.

Some interesting 2024 news has been percolating in the past 24 hours. Donald Trump is talking

about skipping at least one of the first two Republican primary debates, according to the New York

Times. Trump doesn't want to give his challengers a boost by sharing a

stage with them. As you know, he's currently leading all of his rivals by at least 30 points,

some way more than that. So why give them an opportunity to take a shot at him? The Washington Post

has an interesting anecdote up this morning saying that Trump actually told R&C chairwoman

Rona McDaniel that all the primary

debates should be canceled because he's very clearly the party leader. And you might recall

that just a few months ago, Rana promised as part of her reelection campaign for the R&C position

that she would stay neutral in the Republican primary. So obviously she couldn't do that.

It may not surprise you, but the other reason Trump is looking at skipping these debates is because of

personal grudges. Fox News is hosting the first debate in August in Milwaukee. Yes, the same Fox News

that called Arizona for Joe Biden, something that Trump has yet to forgive.

Trump has also told associates that Brett Bear might be the one to host.

He doesn't exactly like Brett Bear, who refused to pander to his election lies about beating Biden in 2020.

Trump is also not exactly thrilled with the idea that the second Republican primary debate will be hosted at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

That library has been doing a recent speaker series called A Time for Choosing that has hosted a number of Trump's rivals, including Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Tim Scott, and Nikki Haley.

I think they even had Liz Cheney.

So not exactly a place that Donald Trump wants to be associated with. So why does all this matter?

It matters because it really could limit the opportunity of other Republican presidential contenders to take a shot at Trump, who's clearly the frontrunner.

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