Will He or Won't He?

Per The Hill: 

Former President Trump is seeking to keep the spotlight on him by drawing out his decision on whether or not to join his fellow candidates in the first GOP presidential primary debate later this month.

Trump has been threatening to skip the Republican National Committee’s Aug. 23 debate for months, citing his frontrunner status in the primary, but he said this week that he hasn’t "totally ruled it out."

My prediction, in which I am reasonably confident:

He will, because he both loves the spotlight and knows he has to keep himself in it as much as humanly possible to succeed in getting nominated and elected (more the latter than the former).

My analysis, in which I am completely (although perhaps not justifiably) confident:

He shouldn't, because at this point at least one of his opponents (Chris Christie), and maybe more, has his number and the guts to open a can of whip-ass on him, if he (or they) can just get face to face with him in public to do so with real effect.

If there's a path to the GOP nomination for anyone other than Trump, the entrance to that path is the place where that someone just walks all over the guy.

Calls him a lying sack of shit, to his face, in public.

Calls him a loser, to his face, in public.

Calls him a self-dealing scammer (and not much of a businessman), to his face, in public.

Calls him out as the dipshit who cost the GOP the 2018 midterms, the 2020 election, and the 2022 "red wave," to his face, in public.

Calls him out as the sore loser who engaged -- regardless of whether he's convicted or not, he did much of it in public -- in various efforts and conspiracies to overturn an election he lost, solely because he lost it, to his face, in public.

Invites his supporters to extract crania from recta and drop him like the bad habit he is -- with him standing right there and unable to do anything about it but fume, tantrum (and get his mic cut), or walk out.

All that might not work. But it's the only approach that might work, so he'd be ill-advised to give anyone the opportunity to take it.