Donald Trump confirms he will skip Republican presidential debate

Donald Trump is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, recent polls show

Donald Trump has confirmed that he will not take part in the upcoming Republican presidential debate with his rivals in the race for the White House.

The ex-president said one latest poll showed he had "legendary" numbers ahead of other hopefuls to be the party's nominee for the 2024 election.

It is not immediately clear if Mr Trump will be skipping all the debates for the Republican primaries.

The first Republican presidential primary debate will be on 23 August.

Voting begins in the state of Iowa on 15 January 2024.

Recent polls have consistently shown that Mr Trump - who faces a number of criminal charges - is currently the front-runner for the Republican nomination.

• Republican rivals need Trump to debate. But will he?

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, Mr Trump confirmed he would not attend the debate, and pointed to the latest poll indicating he was leading the Republican field.

"The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had," Mr Trump said. "I will therefore not be doing the debates."

A poll from the BBC's US partner CBS News suggests his closest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, is lagging well behind.

In recent months, Mr Trump had repeatedly suggested that he would not join the Republican debates.

The former president plans to sit for a pre-taped interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson that may run during the first debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday, sources familiar with the planning have told CBS.

Mr Trump's suggestion that he would skip this week's debate sparked criticism from at least one of his Republican rivals, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

"If he believes he should be the nominee, if he believes that he's got such a great record, if he believes he's the best person to go against Joe Biden, then show up on Wednesday night and stop being such a coward," Mr Christie said last week.

Republican presidential hopefuls must meet several qualifications to attend the debate, including receiving donations from at least 40,000 individuals and obtaining at least 1% in high-quality polling.

So far, former Vice-President Mike Pence, Mr DeSantis, Mr Christie, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott are all confirmed to have qualified.

The first Republican debate comes the same week that Mr Trump has to voluntarily surrender in Fulton County, Georgia.

He must appear by 25 August in the state to face charges of trying to overturn the result of the 2020 election in the state.

Donald Trump is facing dozens of criminal charges and will go on trial several times in the next 18 months, even as he campaigns to become president again in the 2024 US election.

Aside from Mr Trump's most recent Georgia charges, he has been charged in Florida with illegally hoarding classified files at his estate there, Mar-a-Lago, and refusing to hand them back when asked.

His third indictment was unveiled this month in Washington DC, where prosecutors accuse him of repeatedly airing the false claim he had won the last presidential election.

He has repeatedly described the various charges against him as a political "witch hunt".

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