Will Donald Trump Accept Mark Cuban’s Offer for a 4-Hour Interview?
Introduction: Back in February, Mr. Trump declined a set up with Megyn Kelly. It's very easy for someone to set the table for an embarrassment. Why would a serious contender bother to respond? It's a straw dog for Mr. Cuban to throw out, and his wager is safe, yielding him some smirk time that has little substance. This is about America, not about a few million or some schoolyard tactics. Trump didn't need Kelly then and he doesn't need Cuban now. But thanks for the attention anyway.
Trump: A Coward Who Won't Accept the Offer
Of course not. Donald John Trump is a coward, like most bullies are. That’s all you need to know to understand why he will never take Mark Cuban up on this offer even if he really needs the money. I absolutely wish there were some way for Cuban to bait him into it, but I don’t expect so. It’s kind of like Trump releasing his tax returns: he should do this, any serious candidate would do this if given the chance, but no matter what the downside of chickening out, that’s still better than doing the right thing.
Trump's Campaign: Issue-Free but Bombastic
But I'll elaborate anyway. Trump's whole campaign is issue-free. It cycles around Trump saying something crazy in front of 10,000 people at a rally or in a call-in to a softball TV infotainment program, then surfing all of that free exposure for the next week. Every single time he has tried to discuss actual issues in any detail he's fallen on his face. Every. Single. Time.
Mark Cuban's a smart guy, and Trump goes it. Cuban would go into the interview knowing far more about the economy, world issues, etc., than Trump. It's not that difficult— I could do a similar four-hour interview on the issues. Even if Mr. Trump did handle a few of the questions, he’d fail on most of them for the simple fact that Cuban would not allow the kind of obvious deflections that most of the TV personalities who've got anywhere near Trump always permit.
That’s not accidental. Trump's already letting us know that he’s afraid of Anderson Cooper being a debate moderator. Cooper’s a sharp interviewer and he’s certainly more knowledgeable than Trump on a host of issues. When Trump says "it won't be fair," that’s code for "I won't be able to bullshit my way through this." He prefers the deck to be stacked in advance.
The Debates: A Symptom of a Broader Problem
I’m not suggesting Trump is alone in this. Yes, he’s the intellectually weakest candidate who’s run in my lifetime, at least in his understanding of the things that a President needs to know. But it’s worse than that. He’s not intellectually curious. He’s a narcisist who thinks he already knows just about everything. “I know more about ISIS than the generals” that kind of thing. I don’t think he’s a stupid man, but his refusal to even attempt to learn anything germane to being President will make him seem that way when pressed by someone who is doing the proper kind of long-form interview that a candidate for the most powerful position on the planet ought to be required to endure.
Trump, however, is at least in part a symptom of the problem. The Presidential Debates were once run by the League of Women Voters. They brought in the moderators they wanted, they asked the questions they wanted, and if a candidate didn't like that they didn't have to show up. Well that is until 1988. In 1988 the election was Vice President George H. W. Bush for Team R, Governor Michael Dukakis for Team D. In secret, they negotiated an agreement, and thus the Commission on Presidential Debates was formed by the R's and the D's. So it’s not entirely surprising that in 2000 they put in a rule that only candidates with 15 or more in a specified composite of national polls would be invited to future debates. The CPD doesn’t necessarily allow one of two major parties to dominate but it absolutely dumbs down the debates to the point where both candidates are basically happy before the debate takes place.
And this is why we can’t have nice things anymore. And consider... if this got no other coverage, Cuban does own HD-Net. So this would get national coverage on cable TV and the Internet. Can you imagine for a femtosecond Hillary Clinton turning down a chance to just talk about issues, even when there might be some challenging questions? Of course not.