Donald Trump has a clear message for the moderators of the presidential debate: Don’t do any fact-checking, or my supporters are going to get you.
During an interview on Fox and Friends on Thursday morning, the Republican nominee said that he would want the moderator of the first debate, Lester Holt, to refrain from pointing out inaccuracies in his speech. When asked if he wouldn’t want Holt to correct the record in case either of the presidential nominees presented erroneous information, Trump said that job should be left to the candidates themselves.
“I think he has to be a moderator. You’re debating somebody, and if [Clinton] makes a mistake, or if I make a mistake, we’ll take each other on. But I certainly don’t think you want Candy Crowley again.”
Trump’s reference to Candy Crowley is particularly interesting. In case you might not recall, Crowley moderated one of the debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney back in 2012. When Romney said that Obama had not labeled the Benghazi attacks “an act of terror” in the immediate aftermath of the incident, Crowley gently pointed out to him that he was wrong to have made such an assumption. Obama had, she said, categorically called the attacks an act of “terror,” after which the wrath of Romney supporters fell on Crowley.
As Washington Post reports, Crowley was subject to days and days of rage and abuse from Romney’s surrogates and supporters, despite her being correct the whole time. So is Trump trying to warn Holt not to commit the same error — the error of speaking the truth during the debate?
“I think Lester’s a very good person, a very good man. I think there’s a lot of pressure on him,” Trump appeared to warn the moderator.
“You know, when I had the town hall, last week with Hillary, I did well, and I had tough questions. But the polls all had her taking a drubbing… They went after Matt Lauer, and I’ve never seen anything like it….That’s what they’re doing with Lester Holt…and a lot of people are watching to see whether he succumbs to that pressure.”
JUST IN: Donald Trump Issues INSANE Threat To Debate Moderators If They Fact-Check Him https://t.co/xaMeHnE7p0 pic.twitter.com/aJjkF0II0g
— Bipartisan Report (@Bipartisanism) September 23, 2016
While Trump is basically right about Clinton’s supporters going after Lauer after what was, in truth, one of the most abysmal performances by a news host in recent times, the Republican nominee seems to have conveniently ignored the fact that Lauer was lambasted for not correcting a slew of lies that the real estate mogul uttered at the Commander-in-Chief forum.
On the contrary, Trump’s warning to Holt sounds more like, “If you attempt to correct something that is not factually right, my supporters will be after you like Mitt Romney’s supporters went after Candy Crowley.”
In other words, Trump does not want the moderators holding candidates accountable for what they say on the debate stage. But if the moderator is not there to do any fact-checking, or at least contest any inaccuracies uttered by the candidates, the debates might as well do away with the idea of a moderator at all.
Trump has already made clear he would prefer that . It is hardly surprising too, considering that the Republican nominee might feel like he could dominate the debate if it descends into some sort of a pumped-up hysteria-driven reality TV show. He has good experience with that.
Trump tells Lester Holt: Don’t fact-check during the debate https://t.co/yyz9wxI4fo pic.twitter.com/reawE4SzII
— The Hill (@thehill) September 23, 2016
This is perhaps the first time that a presidential nominee has issued an open call to debate moderators urging them not to check facts and instead, as Trump might have put it on another day, “go with the flow.”
This warning is pretty much consistent with Trump’s other efforts to unsettle the moderator before the debate takes place in New York on Monday. Trump’s surrogates have already been hard at work to spread the lie that Lester Holt is a Democrat, when in fact he is a registered Republican.
But for all of Donald Trump’s bickering and warnings, it would be good if Lester Holt at least manages to hold his ground and remain bipartisan during the first debate.
[Featured Image by Mark Wilson/Getty Image]