Apparently this is the first time a Fox News host has moderated a presidential debate. I don’t know anything about Chris Wallace. Is he closer to Shepard Smith or Bill O’Reilly?
Curious to see how Holt does. I’ll be very disappointed if he softballs the questions. Cooper is probably dangerous for both candidates. Don’t know about the other three.
But Cooper is one of the moderators for the second debate, which is the town hall format. It’s been a while since I watched a presidential debate, but aren’t all the questions asked by the audience and the moderators simply enforce the debate rules and schedule?
Do the moderators have any control over the questions in the town hall debate? Such as selecting which questions are asked?
Do we know that Trump has even commented on it yet? Did either candidate have input into the choices? I assumed that the CPD made the decisions unilaterally.
On a related note, will Wallace go easy on Trump due to his relationship with Ailes? Even if not, it’s possible that Ailes will have an advantage preparing Trump for the third debate, since he presumably knows Wallace very well. The jury is still out on whether Trump can pay attention long enough to take Ailes’ advice.
I wonder if the order of the moderators is important. It’s my impression that the later debates have more of an effect on the election, and the moderator from the most conservative news channel comes last. I don’t know that Wallace will intentionally steer things Trump’s way but he could do so subconsciously given his day in and day out reporting.
I think the big show will be the first. It will be the highest rated, it will be the one where Trump gets the snot beat out of him. He may well not show up for the last two.
Lester Holt is in my estimation a good guy. He’ll be fair. I’m hoping Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell get some input into the questions. I don’t think he’ll ask questions like “do you think your opponent is a bigot?”.
Chris Wallace is a rarity at Fox, an actual journalist. He’ll do fine.
Why would you assume that? I have no doubt the campaigns were consulted to some degree. The CPD is basically a bipartisan commission, not “nonpartisan” as it describes itself. The two co-chairs are a former chair of the RNC and a former Communications director for the DNC (who was also Bill Clinton’s press secretary).
CNN’s moderating was a shit show during the debates. Cooper did pretty well in some of the one-on-one town hall sessions, but he let the GOP debates turn into a circus, IIRC. Wallace, to my surprise, was pretty good and tried to cut off the crazy train antics of Trump.
I felt Gwen Ifill was pretty good but guessing Trump wanted none of her – Ifill would treat the debate like, well, a debate instead of a WWE “ladder match,” which is probably what Trump wants to turn it into.