• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, June 20, 2019

President Donald Trump wants to live-tweet during the first upcoming Democratic Presidential debate, according to The Wall Street Journal. His advisors, reportedly, are trying to dissuade him.

But we know about Trump, his fast-moving Twitter fingers and his reaction to advisors who put the kibosh on such stuff. Get your hands off!

In that regard, we need to ask whether NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo airing the two-day event on June 26 and 27 will live air those tweets. It seems that Trump is aiming for his version of photobombing. (Tweet-bombing?)

But this may backfire. Trump may give MSNBC/NBC higher ratings, which in turn  will mean better results for those limited number of TV marketers buying into the event.

We all remember how Trump’s so-called frank and honest talk during the Republican presidential debates resulted in high viewership for the networks involved. So much so that Trump wanted CNN to donate its higher national TV ad revenues.

Will he ask the same of MSNBC/NBC should that occur again? How about Fox News Channel, if and when they air some debate programming down the line?

We know about Trump's straightforward behavior when it comes to his own donating activities.

The Trump Foundation has now agreed to shut down after New York State filed a civil lawsuit against the foundation, as well as Trump himself and his three adult children, alleging "persistently illegal conduct" with respect to the foundation's money.

But I digress. For NBC, it might prove a bonus to read those live tweets on air as they come in -- and perhaps ask Democratic candidates to respond.  Real-time fact checkers, of course, could weigh in. And think of the in-studio audience reactions -- cheers, boos, you name it.

Maybe Trump -- a press hound like no other -- believes that any publicity, good or bad, is better than no publicity, especially while Democrat candidates own this specific news cycle.

Maybe Trump is just homesick. It’s been a while since he was on NBC with “The Apprentice” and “Celebrity Apprentice.” TV ratings are in the balance.

The 12 Republican presidential TV debates between 2015 and 2016 -- which included Trump -- averaged 15.5 million Nielsen-measured TV viewers. The highest came from the first, aired by Fox News Channel in August 2015, with 24 million viewers. The lowest came on the Fox Business Network, 11.1 million, in January 2016.

Nine Democratic presidential TV debates during the same period averaged 8 million viewers -- with CNN grabbing the best results for the first one in October 2015 at 15.8 million. The lowest was MSNBC in February 2016, at 4.5 million.

The only question for this special Democratic presidential TV debate program: Does Trump want to play hero, villain or comic-relief?