The Morning Briefing: ABC News Moderators Were the Big Winners of Last Night's Debate

Top O' the Briefing

Happy Wednesday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. The Sine Qua Non Sequitur would prefer that everybody just didn't for a while.

Well, that was a lot of fun last night. I mean, if your idea of fun is having dental surgery without anesthesia, then getting hit by a bus when you cross the street on your way home.

If you didn't watch the debate (I know, I know, they're not really debates) last night, you have my deepest envy. Here is the link to the live blog that my colleagues and I did if you want to catch up. If you've never joined us for one of these, I encourage you to do so in the future. We have a lot of fun. The comments section is always jumping — over 1,400 last night.

Matt wrote a recap of the debate as soon as we wrapped up the live blog while it was still fresh in his mind, and his title for the post says it all: "What the Heck Happened in the Trump-Harris Debate?"

I think a lot of people felt that way. Trump wasn't at his best, but it wasn't all his fault. Two things were all on him, however: his preparation — or lack thereof — and the fact that he walked into the lion's den of bias in the first place. I have been railing against Republicans agreeing to primary or presidential debates with hostile, heavily biased moderators for years now, including in June when Trump and the GOP agreed to this nonsense.

Kamala Harris didn't provide much real competition for Trump last night. The bar was low for her — all she had to do was show up and not be Joe Biden. Mission accomplished. She spent the evening doing little more than regurgitating DNC talking points from New York Times and WaPo editorials from the last few years. It was remarkably brain-dead, but it was all she needed.

The real problem was the interference from moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, who were the most egregiously biased I've ever seen, and I've watched George Stephanopoulos do a number of these things.

Catherine wrote yesterday about how vehemently anti-Trump David Muir is, and Davis wasn't any better last night. As our sister site Twitchy reported, it didn't take Davis long to have a "Candy Crowley Moment."

Muir and Davis constantly interrupted and fact-checked Trump, while, as my RedState colleague Nick Arama wrote, Harris was allowed to lie through her teeth all night.

It was noted often on social media that Trump was really debating three people. That's always the case for the Republican in these MSM-hosted debates though. Complaining about that is like going to an NBA game and whining about all of the tall people on the court. Yes, Trump should have been better prepared for it but in my opinion, he should never have agreed to an ABC debate in the first place.

Once he was there, however, he should have shut down Muir and Davis by rejecting their interference and pointing out how highly inappropriate their actions were. Instead, he let them get away with it all night long. Hardcore Trump fans aren't going to like this, but Ron DeSantis was really good at calling B.S. on moderators in the primary debates.

There were a lot of missed opportunities for Trump last night but, once again, the biggest one was when he didn't say no to the debate earlier in the summer. Or, at the very least, press for a better setup. This is from that article I wrote back then:

Trump, after all, is fresh off of a primary season where he told his opponents and the debates to go stuff themselves (do people still say that?). The party is his now, so he could have pushed for more favorable debate conditions. There are a variety of alternatives to traditional media outlets for exposure now. That's doubly true where Donald Trump is concerned. Cameras will show up wherever he is. He could easily have pressed for a venue and moderators who weren't veteran water carriers for the Democrats.

Thanks to last night's farce, the Harris campaign is clamoring for another debate. If Trump wants to do it, maybe he and his people can fight to set the next game up so that they're not starting behind the 8-ball.

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