Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis criticized former President Donald Trump during an interview Tuesday night, saying that the former president needed to show up to this week’s GOP primary debate to defend his record as president.

DeSantis made the remarks during an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham ahead of Wednesday’s debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. DeSantis, who is second place nationally in current polling, will be at the center of the debate stage since Trump is not attending.

“I think it’s interesting that he is not willing to stand on that stage,” DeSantis said of Trump. “I think he owes it to all the voters to show up, defend his record, and articulate what he would do going forward and what he would might do differently. And he’s not willing to do that. I think the voters have a right to hear from all the candidates.”

“I mean, I think we can talk about a lot of the things — he’s running in 2024 on a lot of the same promises he ran on in 2016 and didn’t deliver on,” he continued. “He said he was going to drain the swamp. They didn’t drain the swamp at all. He still defends hiring Christopher Wray, he didn’t fire Wray. He didn’t fire Fauci. He said Mexico was gonna pay for the border wall. That didn’t happen. They started the wall, but we’ve got a lot more to be able to do to finish the wall. He said he was going to eliminate the national debt. They added almost a trillion dollars to the debt in four years, and then remember, he promised to appoint a special counsel for Hillary Clinton, then after the election two weeks later, he’s like, ‘Oh, no, forget about it. That’s what you say before the election, it’s not what you say after.’ So now, he’s saying he’s going to do one for Biden, but he had promised to do that for you in 2016. So I think it’s about, you got to deliver on these things.”

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WATCH:

It sounds like Ron DeSantis has his game plan set for tomorrow’s debate sans Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/Xav36v58wQ

— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) September 27, 2023

Trump announced back in August that he would not be attending any of the Republican debates, citing voters’ familiarity with his record and his commanding lead in the national polls, which currently stands at around 40 points, according to the RealClearPolitics average.

“Many people are asking whether or not I will be doing the DEBATES?” Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform Truth Social ahead of the first primary debate in August. “ALL AMERICANS have been clamoring for a President of extremely High Intelligence. As everyone is aware, my Poll numbers, over a ‘wonderful’ field of Republican candidates, are extraordinary. In fact, I am leading the runner up, whoever that may now be, by more than 50 Points. Reagan didn’t do it, and neither did others. People know my Record, one of the BEST EVER, so why would I Debate?”

A few days later, he confirmed that he would not do any of debates. “The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had,” he wrote. “I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!”

Instead of attending the debate Wednesday, Trump is planning to meet with striking autoworkers from the United Auto Workers union in Detroit, Michigan.

President Joe Biden‘s dog Commander bit a member of the Secret Service in yet another incident, the agency confirmed on Tuesday.

Steven Kopek, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said a Secret Service Uniformed Division police officer “came in contact with a first family pet and was bitten” around 8 p.m. on Monday.

“The officer was treated by medical personnel on complex,” Kopek noted, adding that the officer spoke with Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Tuesday and is doing alright, according to CNN.

Commander, who is the first family’s 2-year-old German Shepard, already developed a reputation for biting after being welcomed into the first family in December 2021.

Information obtained by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch showed the canine bit seven people in a four-month period from September 2022 through January 2023 and one Secret Service agent even got sent to the hospital, per the New York Post.

This week’s biting is reported to be at least the 11th known incident involving Commander spanning from the White House to Delaware. It had some of Biden’s most vocal critics howling.

“The Biden family doesn’t care one whit about the danger this out-of-control dog poses!” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton exclaimed in a post to X.

“Are the Biden family’s Secret Service agents supposed to just accept being attacked by their disturbed dog as part of the job?” asked New York Post columnist Miranda Devine.

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Elizabeth Alexander, the communications director for first lady Jill Biden, told The New York Times that the White House “can be a stressful environment for family pets” and the first family “continues to work on ways to help Commander handle the often unpredictable nature of the White House grounds.”

The “president and first lady are incredibly grateful to the Secret Service and Executive Residence staff for all they do to keep them, their family, and the country safe,” Alexander also said.

President Biden has been dogged by negative pet stories for years. He had another German Shepard named Major who also got in trouble for biting. The commander in chief even hurt his ankle after falling while playing with the dog.

Major was removed from the White House and ultimately got left with family friends.

The Bidens also had a 13-year-old German Shepard, Champ, that died in 2021. In addition, they adopted a cat named Willow.