Master debaters? Debatable

By BRUCE LOWITT

The unofficial Republican debate you didn’t see was far more entertaining than the official one you watched – assuming you tuned in to the shit show on Fox – when Donald Trump showed up unexpectedly and stalked the four minor-league candidates as they bitched and moaned for more than an hour.

The former president slipped unannounced into the Brick 3 Pizza restaurant around the corner from the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, the sports arena where six GOP candidates were busy tearing Vivek Ramaswamy a new asshole while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was tearing himself a second one.

In the pizzeria, as zealous Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, misogynistic radio host Larry Elder, gun-toting former Texas Rep. Will Hurd and street-hustling Miami Mayor Francis Suarez whined about being left out of the Republican National Committee debate, Trump shadowed them, made faces and held up two-finger “horns” behind their heads while they tried in vain to make themselves heard above the crowd watching a replay of Saturday’s Patriots-Packers preseason NFL game.

Demitri Itsines, general manager of Brick 3 Pizza, said he asked a nephew to record the gathering to sell to Newsmax but that at the last minute the teenager was called away by friends to videotape them trying out skateboard stunts.

Trump didn’t speak with the candidates, calling them “losers who couldn’t even raise the cash” required by the RNC to participate in the televised debate. He limited his remarks to saying various prosecutors and judges are “criminals who shouldn’t even be allowed near courtrooms except as defendants” and referred to potential witnesses against him in future trials as “bastards who’d better keep their mouth shut. … My lawyers told me I can say that as long as I don’t mention any of them by name.”

Johnson and Elder said they’ll be suing the RNC, which barred them from the debate for failing to meet required poll qualifications. “They tell me to sign a pledge to support the nominee,” Elder yelled, “then they tell me not to bother showing up? Well, screw them! And Suarez said anyone who didn’t qualify should drop out. But … Suarez? Where the hell are you?”

Itsines said Suarez told him he felt he didn’t belong “and left half an hour ago. Didn’t even pay for his calzone, the cheap bastard.”

Johnson, who didn’t initially see Trump enter the restaurant, shouted, “I never had porn-star pussy. I never had a casino go belly up. I never blew a Russian leader when … Oh, hello, Donal- … uh, Mr. President. I was just saying um … uh … ahem … Nice tie.”

Trump left the restaurant moments later for a flight to Atlanta, where he planned to hold a rally Thursday before turning himself in to the Fulton County district attorney. More accurately, Trump was chased out of the pizzeria by Itsines after he tried to order a couple of Big Macs.

Elder and Suarez didn’t acknowledge Trump during their alleged campaigning and complaining. But Hurd, in an oblique reference, said, “Unlike just about everyone on the big (debate) stage, I wouldn’t kiss anyone’s fat ass to be up there. But if asked, I would be willing to bang their daughter – definitely the older one, probably the younger one.”