Donald Trump Says He Won't Participate in Virtual Debate Transcript October 8

President Trump: (00:00) I beat him in the first debate. At the second debate, we have a never Trumper as a host, but that's okay because I'd beat him in the second debate also. And I'm not going to do a virtual debate. Maria: (00:12) So Mr. President, you're not going to do it because the CPD, the commission on presidential debates announcing this morning that the second presidential debate will be virtual. You saying you're not going to participate? President Trump: (00:24) No, I'm not going to waste my time on a virtual debate. That's not what debating's all about. You sit behind a computer and do a debate. It's ridiculous. And then they cut you off whenever they want. I have a host who I always thought was a nice guy, but I see is a never Trumper. You know, it came out that he's a never Trumper. And we do have some of them Maria, believe it or not, because they don't like to win. And so, but I'm not doing, I'm not doing it a virtual debate. Maria: (00:47) I believe that moderator at one point... President Trump: (00:49) They didn't even tell us about the debate Maria. Maria: (00:52) So you just learned this this morning? President Trump: (00:55) Yeah. We learned it the same way you learned it. They called up two minutes ago and it was announced and they're trying to protect Biden. Everybody is. Like that NBC disaster, where he went on the show with Lester Holt. It was like, it was meant for a child. It wasn't meant for a grown person. He gets up and he says, "We're not fracking. We're not fracking." He was fracking for six months. He was fracking. He was raising his very thin hand and he was fracking. And now all of a sudden, he's not fracking. Well tell the Pennsylvania people that you're going, it's ridiculous. He said, he's not fracking. That's all he said. And then all of a sudden, he goes to a fracking mode. And how about her? She committed her life to it. And all of a sudden she's a fracker. She's a big fracker. They going to stop fracking the minute they get into office, they're lying to everybody. They're lying about so many different things, but you have to confront them people, you can't do it over a computer. Maria: (01:49) I want to talk to you about that. I want to talk to you about what you heard last night. But, but Mr. President, you say you're not going to do this debate. Address the criticism, Mr. President, the criticism that you removed your mask for a photo op, you got to the top of the steps. You removed it. People are worried about your recent diagnosis. Now you've got 30 plus people with coronavirus in and around the White House. Address that concern for us, Mr. President, as you tell the commission on debates you're not going to do this virtually. President Trump: (02:18) Yeah. Well, first of all, I think I'm better to a point where I'd love to do a rally tonight, I wanted to do one last night, but I think I'm better to a point that I feel better than I did you know, I jokingly said 20 years ago, I feel perfect. There's nothing wrong. I had a case, I got it knocked out. I think it was Regeneron that was responsible for it. Because of that, it was sort of like almost a gift from heaven because of what I went through and I felt pretty lousy. A lot of people did. A lot of people do. No matter how good the security, you're not going to protect yourself from this thing with just your standard anything, unless you just literally don't come out and even those people found out. Did you see in New York City, the most heavily locked down place, the people that caught it the most were the people that were caught in their houses and their apartments. Okay?