If you tuned in to watch the second Republican debate on the FOX Business network, you may have felt a bit disappointed.
The candidates frequently yelled over each other with three or more people speaking at once, but that is to be expected. The bigger letdown was the moderators and the questions.
One of the moderators was a journalist for Univision, who repeatedly asked questions that were from the far left, based on identity politics or were clearly meant to be gotcha questions. Even Dana Perino, who commands a lot of respect on the right, was raosted for asking a question at the end, based on the ‘Survivor’ reality show.
Conservative pundits and bloggers were not impressed.
Ed Morrissey of Hot Air wrote:
The biggest loser of last night’s debate was …
… not any of the seven candidates on the stage. It wasn’t even one of the candidates who weren’t on the stage — Donald Trump, Asa Hutchinson, and an assortment of also rans. The biggest loser of the debate was Fox Business Channel, with the RNC that arranged it a close runner-up.
We can put aside the bickering and bad behavior of the candidates on stage for this assessment. Yes, the ‘moderators’ let it get out of hand, but this is a debate, after all — and the candidates are the show. If they want to argue amongst themselves, the responsibility falls on the candidates more than the forum, and we can judge their worth as potential nominees accordingly. But right from the start, it became clear that the questions and topics could have been ghostwritten by MSNBC, making this more of a firing line than a debate to discuss conservative principles and policies, and deliberately manipulated to provide the ‘bad behavior’ that some candidates willingly provided.
Paula Bolyard of PJ Media writes:
Whose Side Is Fox on Anyway?
The Fox Business GOP presidential debate was a total trainwreck — and that’s putting it mildly.
If you watched, you were treated to nearly two hours of left-wing talking points from the moderators, who not only had no control of the debate but ignored their own rules and allowed candidates to attack one another without the opportunity for rebuttal.
The leftist Univision moderator — Emmy award winner!!! Ilia Calderón — who had trouble speaking English clearly, kept asking questions about Dreamers and DACA, turning the questions into speeches to condemn GOP policies on immigration.
Megyn Kelly commented on Twitter:
Is this an msnbc debate?
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) September 28, 2023
It was a bad debate. People on the right expected better from FOX Business.