Debate Moderators Shouldn’t be ‘Subject of Discussion’ Next Day: Debate Coach

Let's hear a perspective on last night's matchup from Brett O'Donnell. He's a Republican debate coach. Brett, let's see if we can get you on. Hi, thanks for joining our show. So what was the toughest question posed to each candidate and how do they handle that? Let's start with Harris and we'll move on to Trump. Sure. Well, I don't know that Kamala Harris actually got a tough question, but the one tough question that, you know, you could remotely call cut tough was when she was asked very lightly about the change in her positions and then she was allowed to skate by with an answer that was really a non-answer. That's what you saw repeatedly on Kamala Harris' side last night was a candidate who didn't really answer a single question in the debate. We still have no idea where she would take the country, what her specific policies would be. All we have are a bunch of hype and vibes and then attacks on Donald Trump. OK, so Brett, you're arguing that there were not that many tough questions posed to Harris. Did she look good, though, then in that case, since it was, in your view, softball questions thrown at her? Well, I thought I thought she looked moderately good. I mean, I'd give her a grade of around C or C plus. But, you know, I think that was made possible by a press that was definitely biased. I mean, the moderators, in my opinion, were heavily biased toward Kamala Harris, and I thought that influenced the nature of the debate tremendously. Well, let's unpack this a little further. The way the debate was hosted, that is, former candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, he described the night as a three on one fight against Trump. And ABC anchors pressed Trump on abortion. He responded. And then Trump suggested that Harris should be asked if she supports late term abortion into the third trimester. But then the moderators just changed the subject. What's your reaction to this? Yeah, I think that's that's absolutely right. I mean, on every question, Trump was pressed. And then instead of going back and pressing Harris on her views, it was basically what's your thoughts, Kamala, on the subject. And so I really thought the moderators did a poor job last night. Whenever moderators become a subject of discussion from either side in the debate, you know that they haven't done a good job. If you take a look back at the CNN debate, the moderators were either praised or not discussed in the wake of that debate, which is how you know they did a decent job. But instead of talking about things that really matter to the American people, like an in-depth discussion on the economy or an in-depth discussion on what your plan to stop the open border and immigration, what's your plan to stop the war in Ukraine or to stop the war in the Middle East, we had an in-depth discussion of January 6 and whether or not the election was stolen. Those are things that the American people are thinking about. They're thinking about how to put gas and groceries, how to buy gas and groceries, how to pay their rent, what's going to happen with the open border that's bringing drugs into their communities or crime into their communities, what's happening with rising crime. Those are the things that are on the minds of the American people and that's what needed to be talked about in-depth last night. As a matter of fact, a major question on healthcare was at the very end of the debate and it got maybe three minutes worth of discussion. I think we were owed a better debate given that this may be the only debate that happens between the two. So Brett, to your point, the moderators quoted Harris saying that Trump's tariffs on countries like China, for example, are going to raise the cost of gas, food, clothing. So they set this all up that way and then they posed the question to Trump and Trump disagreed with that saying that China is going to be the one that has to pay higher prices and he said that if Harris didn't like his tariffs, she has three and a half years in the White House, she could have made some moves within her administration with Biden to remove them, but the Biden administration has kept most of the Trump-era tariffs. What do you have to say about this? Well, that is a great example of the campaign that Kamala Harris is being allowed to run by the major mainstream media. She's being allowed to pretend that her record of the last four years doesn't exist. She's a candidate running without any record whatsoever and the problem with that is she has a record. She's been the vice president for four years. I actually thought that in Trump's closing remarks, he made a very salient point. I wish he would have made it more throughout the debate and that is if she's running for all of these problems, why didn't she do anything about them for the last three years, four years, and why doesn't she go back to Washington and do something about them now? She could very easily reinstate all the executive orders that they issued rescinding the border policies of the Trump administration. They could very easily get rid of the student loan policy. They could close the border. They could improve the economy. There's lots of things that they could do that they're just not doing that she's now promising she will do if she's elected president, which I think feeds the argument that Trump made that she's not really going to do them. She's really lying to you. She was never pressed on any of those points and the media continues to let her get away with running like a candidate who has absolutely no record when she's got one for the last four years. We have a little bit more time here. An ardent supporter of Harris, California Governor Gavin Newsom, chimed in and he said Harris, quote, exceeded all expectations. What was Harris's best moment of the night? I do think that there were a couple of moments in the debate where she had the opportunity to cast vision and connect with voters. I thought she did a relatively good job of saying here's the kind of president I would be from a personality perspective. In my opinion, that's really kind of the it of her performance. Then on abortion, she did a very good job of covering up the Democrat position on abortion. That needs to be more exposed. Donald Trump was right. There are places that technically allow for abortions after a baby is born. Minnesota has a law that says a baby born as a result of a botched abortion can be allowed to die. That's the kind of fact checking that didn't happen in the debate last night that I wish would have, which allowed her to do a better job than she would have if she would have been treated equally by the moderators. Thank you for sharing your take on Republican debate coach Brett O'Donnell. Thank you.