Joe Scarborough believes former President Donald Trump is avoiding the first GOP primary debate because he is “scared to death of Chris Christie and will not have the guts or the nerve to go on stage with Chris Christie anywhere.”

In terms of cable news hosts goading former presidents go, that was relatively low on the “Goad-o-Meter™” as the Morning Joe host delivered dispassionate and salient analysis.

At issue? A recent Daily Beast column written by Matt Lewis titled “Showing Up to the GOP Debate Would Be the Ultimate Trump Flex.”

Lewis opened the segment by noting how the former New Jersey Governor (and Trump advisor) Chris Christie is the “X factor” regarding the GOP primary debates, further explaining:

I’m curious to see if Donald Trump is afraid of Chris Christie, so afraid of Chris Christie that he doesn’t show up, that he uses excuses such as, I’m not going to sign the pledge, the RNC pledge, or whether Donald Trump is just an egomaniac who craves attention, who loves attention, and who now feels that he has a bigger chip on his shoulder, has to unburden himself and play the victim again that he shows up in Milwaukee. And I think I’m leaning toward the latter. He may not fully appreciate the danger that Chris Christie specifically poses.

Lewis added, “If Donald Trump shows up and I think the biggest flex would be to turn himself in, you know, to surrender himself and then go to the debate. I think Donald Trump shows, look, I can walk and chew gum at the same time. And so I think if you add that in and just his compulsive need for attention, I think he shows.”

Scarborough took the other side of the debate and did so by painting Trump in a less than favorable light, saying:

I’m going to I’m going to take the other side of it. I do think he’s scared of Chris Christie. He saw what Chris Christie did to Marco Rubio when Chris Christie went into a debate with one thing in mind, he knows Chris Christie put Jared Kushner’s father in jail for a very long time. He knows he’s a prosecutor who’s ruthless and knows how to push his case. And he also knows that his secret sauce in 2016 was being the disrupter. Right? Shaking Hillary Clinton up on the debate stage, shaking the Marcos and everybody else up on the debate stage. That gig that’s like eight years old, right? That’s Elvis in ’77 now. And I think Chris Christie’s got his number and he knows Donald Trump is get the gut instinct. Obviously, his political gut instinct is second to none like he sees it coming. And so I think he’s scared to death of Chris Christie and will not have the guts to go or the nerve to go on stage with Chris Christie anywhere.

Jonathan Lemire then cited a source from “Trump’s orbit” that posited an argument for Trump NOT to attend the debate, “then Chris Christie trained his sights on Ron DeSantis and maybe finishes him off there. Well aware of Christie’s strength on the debate stage.”

Watch above via MSNBC.

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