'They were the worst': Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr. slams debate moderators | Wake Up America

Harris team. Yeah. And I think Charlotte did such a good job just sort of laying that out because to the discerning viewer who's really plugged in politically and this is no knock on anyone, this is just look, some people aren't, you know, reading the paper every day or watching the news every day because guess what? They're living their lives as they should be doing. I think that when you see that debate again, not to use Kennedy-nixon, but people that heard it on the radio thought Nixon won because the substance of what he was saying was there. But when you watched on TV, dazzling John F Kennedy, you know, paints quite a picture on a television screen. And they thought that JFK won that debate, tell me, what do you think happens to the Commission on Presidential Debates moving forward? And how do we correct this anomaly that we've seen play out throughout the past year, not using the Commission on Presidential Debates? I hope that changes heading into 2028. Well, we're not going anywhere. We're still around what's going to happen four years from now is another question. You correctly stated earlier that the reason that things went awry were that the white House indicated early on that President Biden would not participate in commission debates and therefore, now former President Trump had originally said that. But later changed his mind a year ago, saying he would debate with the commission. So then they came up with this offer to, CNN, which they would dictate the rules and so forth. And the president accepted it. The former vice former president accepted it, which I think was a mistake. They should not have gone along with what was set in stone by the white House. And then they again had to deal with the same sort of rules when the president, former president, debated the vice president. You had said earlier that you don't think he should have agreed to those terms anyway. President Trump should not have agreed to even do the debate under those terms. If he were to do another debate, what terms do you think he should agree to? Well, I think if you have ever watched any of the commission debates, what we do is we take the 90 minutes, we divide the 90 minutes into six, 15 minute segments, each segment to cover a specific issue. 1st May be a foreign policy, 1st May be education. One certainly would have been the border and the economy and the start out. Each of those six 15 minute segments, each candidate gets to talk two minutes without interruption, and then the remaining 13 minutes or 14 minutes. The moderator and the candidates are supposed to debate and go through and get into the depth, rather than a two minute answer. That really is easy to and, you know, avoid getting to the to the. So I hope that if they were to do another one that they would follow those sort of rule. Moderators are facilitators, not participants in the debate. There are no breaks in the in the 90 minutes. There are no advertisements, which sort of demeans the what we think is the most important part of the function of democracy to have candidates who want to be president of the United States have to address to the American people, and indicate to them why they should be the person they vote for. Another thing that was lost with, with this format that they came up with, is they lost the town hall meeting where an average American gets the opportunity to sit with the presidential candidate and ask a question, and that can make or break a candidate. Think about Bill Clinton in 1992, George H.W. Bush couldn't answer the question. Well, Ross Perot did an okay job, but Bill Clinton, he answered that question about the national debt. He was so eloquent. And that might have. I feel your pain. Rob remember exactly I do. So look, we're out of time, but I just I'm going to take some more time, Frank, because I'm so darn interested. You also said that the candidates should be doing the fact checking, not the moderators. I just in about seconds. Could you comment on your assessment of the performance of David Muir and Linsey Davis? I have my own opinion. I won't share that although I have. And then I just want if you could tell me who you think did it best. You've been in it since 1988. Who moderated the best in your opinion. Well they were the worst. Okay, we'll start there. ABC was the worst there. I mean, when you go back, Jim Lehrer, who was with us for many years, did 12 of our debates. Bob Schieffer did a did a great job. Chris Wallace did a fantastic job in the first debate with against, Hillary did a very, very, very, very good job. Yeah, I wasn't thrilled when you when you look at it that way, you know, you just the comparisons, really, I think look at these two people who I don't know very well. It's interesting. I've been involved in politics for well over 50 years. I've met David Muir once. I never have met the other moderator, so. But I thought this cycle, I thought that CNN, they did a they did a very good job even I think if I remember right, the President Trump actually commended them that they had they