Former president and current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump may be avoiding debating his fellow Republicans, but there is one high-profile person he’d be happy to have a battle of words with.
And it’s ― wait for it ― Meghan Markle.
On Wednesday, Trump told conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt that he’d be down to debate the Duchess of Sussex in a heartbeat.
To be fair, Trump didn’t bring up the idea first. Hewitt mentioned it while discussing the 50th anniversary of the Battle Of The Sexes tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
Hewitt noted to Trump that “90 million people watched that, 90 million people.”
“And the only thing I think that might draw an audience that even approaches that would be if you were to sit down with the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. They don’t like you much. Would you do that for the ratings?” Hewitt asked.
Although Trump was sceptical of Hewitt’s assertion that the two royals aren’t fond of him, he seemed very open to the idea of sitting down with them ― for reasons both personal and professional.
“Well, I don’t know that they don’t like me,” Trump said. “I said that I don’t think they are very appropriate, what they’re saying, what they’re doing, and I didn’t like the way [Markle] dealt with the Queen.”
Trump said he thought the late Queen Elizabeth II “was an incredible woman,” and that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex “treated her with great disrespect.”
He added: “And I didn’t like it. And I didn’t like the idea that they were getting US security when they came over here.”
Returning to the question of whether Harry and Meghan dislike him, Trump acknowledged, “Somebody mentioned it might be possible. They wouldn’t be the only ones.”
Still, he told Hewitt he was open to the potential ratings bonanza of debating the Duchess of Sussex.
“Oh, if you want to set it up, let’s set it up,” Trump said. “I’d love to debate her. I would love it. I disagree so much with what they’re doing.”
The discussion is below.
Since Markle is not running for higher office and Trump has avoided debating the people who are actually challenging him for the Republican presidential nomination, users of X, formerly known as Twitter, openly wondered what a debate between the two would accomplish.