I wouldn’t even dignify that question by calling it a game of “gotcha”. It was an attempt to goad him into an emotional response. I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea was to drive up ratings-- keep people tuned in to watch the dog fight.
Yeah, something like that might be reasonable coming from one of his opponents. Not from a moderator. That’s right up there with “have you stopped beating your wife?”.
I think it’s entirely fair to goad Trump into an emotional response, he’s spent his entire campaign on ginning up emotional responses from people on immigration.
I think a better question to Trump after those lead-ins would have been “why should we take you seriously?” But somebody has to ask these bozos the tough question. They don’t get them on the campaign trail, they don’t get them in the town halls. When else do they have to get called out on their preposterous claims?
Well the best questions would be to ask him for specifics on how he would go about implementing some of his ludicrous plans, and having reports on the ready on how some of his ideas would destroy the country, but that still wouldn’t do any good. He’d just yell about how smart he is and how his ideas will work and the experts who say they won’t are just jealous losers.
It’s gonna be terrific, lemme tell ya, terrific!
I have to say, based on the questions posted in this thread alone, the moderator comes across as petty, smug and lacking in any credibility.
Did Carly really claim that 92% of the job losses after 2008 (or maybe it was under Obama) were women’s jobs? Or did I mishear her on that (I was primarily watching the ball game)?
That can’t be right, can it? Did she just mis-speak?
Not from the moderator of a debate.
Call them out on the facts, not on a cheap, personal shot.
There’s going to be so much deporting that the Mexicans are going to start loving it and deporting themselves. They’ll probably pay for the charter buses back to Mexico!!
America is a post-policy society.
Well, technically, bullshit is a “substance”.
Because Trump and Carson, not Kasich, are reflections of the Republican voter base in this the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Fifteen.
Charles Pierce: “This isn’t a political party any more. It’s a wildlife special about life and death on the Serengeti.”
You mean it would goad him into making an emotional response? 
You know what I think?
For years now, the game in Washington has been to pretend a false equivalence between the two parties. This involves refusing to say that GOP ideas are fucking insane, when the insanity is right in front of you, or to pretend that somehow, Bernie Sanders’ advocacy of single-payer is equivalently crazy.
John Harwood simply refused to ignore the fact that insanity is insanity, when it was staring him in the face. He said what any reasonable person should have said at the end of that sequence.
There comes a time when things have moved past the point where you can legitimately say, “because of the particular role I’m playing in this proceeding, I can’t admit that a shit sandwich really is a shit sandwich.” And this was it.
He was a freakin’ human being up there. Good on him for not losing sight of that.
(post shortened)
Harwood came off as an arrogant asshole who doesn’t understand (or maybe didn’t care) what the role of a debate moderator is. The candidates were there to debate each other. The audience, and most of the viewers, wanted to hear the candidates debate the issues. NO ONE wanted to hear what Larry, Moe, and Curly from CNBC had to say concerning ANY issue.
The ostensible purpose for the debate is to help voters make up their minds about who to vote for. Hearing Trump explain why his candidacy should be taken seriously, despite all the evidence so far, or hearing Rubio, Cruz, or Carson try to answer for the serious gaps in their tax plans are completely consistent with the mission of the debate. The fact that the Republican candidates don’t like having their fantasies questioned is on them, not on the debate moderators.
The ass clowns from CNBC stunk up the joint. They lost control of the debate on several occasions. They thought they were there to debate the candidates. They repeatedly showed their personal dislike of the candidates. And the audience repeatedly rewarded the moderator actions by BOOOOOOOing the moderators. What a hoot.
Any competent high school debate team could have presented a better show than CNBC managed to do.
These moderators injected themselves into the debate. These moderators failed as moderators. They excelled as DNC shills.
As usual, it’scherry-picked bullshit. Apparently, in a recession, men lose their jobs first (in this case, before Obama was even inaugurated) because they tend to work the heavy construction and industrial jobs. Then the women lose their jobs because, hey, recession.
Although looking at the chart in the Vox article, I can’t actually figure out what time period they cherry picked the numbers from.
As the article noted, Carly forgot to mention that the jobs also came back under Obama’s administration.
Being an expert at one thing doesn’t mean being even knowledgeable about much else. In fact, I’d go so far as to say his focus is narrow to the exclusion of most other areas. He’s good at cutting people’s brains, not budgets, and it really showed in his fumbling on the money question.