Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says he'll participate in the first Republican presidential nomination debate "regardless" of whether former President Donald Trump takes the stage at the August showdown.
"I'll be there regardless. I hope everybody who's eligible comes. I think it's an important part of the process and I look forward to being able to be on the stage and introducing our candidacy and our vision and our leadership to a wide audience," DeSantis said Thursday on "Fox News Tonight."
The debate is scheduled for August 23 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and will be hosted by Fox News.
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Trump, who's the commanding front-runner in the latest GOP presidential primary polls as he makes his third straight White House run, has indicated both publicly and privately that he may skip the debate, due in part to his large lead over the rest of the field of Republican 2024 contenders.
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But Trump campaign officials say the former president has yet to make any final decision on his participation in the debate. Trump's aides have also been looking into options for an alternative event should the former president skip the debate.
The Republican National Committee, which is organizing all the GOP presidential nominating debates, is requiring a high donor threshold as well as polling thresholds for candidates to make the stage.
Trump and DeSantis officials — along with the presidential campaigns of former ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — have said they've hit the thresholds.
But some of the lesser-known candidates in the field of over a dozen contenders face a steep uphill climb to meet the RNC's requirements.
The RNC will also mandate that candidates that meet the thresholds sign a loyalty pledge to back the eventual 2024 GOP nominee, in order to participate in the debate. The pledge has faced criticism from some of the candidates who vocally oppose Trump.
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DeSantis was interviewed on the Fox News Channel hours after his campaign announced that the Florida governor hauled in $20 million during the first six weeks of his presidential bid.
While he trails Trump by double digits in the latest polls, DeSantis pointed to his fundraising prowess and touted "did you just see the news today about the record fundraising haul we've had? Nobody's been able to match that in the history of modern presidential politics."
"We've got a huge amount of support to be able to take the case to the people," DeSantis argued. "We really haven't started that yet. We're in the process of building out a great organization, and I think we're going to be on the ground in all these early states."
Word of DeSantis fundraising haul, which was first reported by Fox News Digital, came a day after Trump's team reported that the former president's campaign and Save America, his political action committee, together brought in over $35 million during the April-June second quarter of 2023 political fundraising.
