Fox News’ Chris Wallace To Moderate Presidential Debate But No Latinos Will

Donald Trump is probably thrilled with the moderators chosen for the upcoming presidential debates. But the rest of us should be concerned.

Today, the Commission on Presidential Debates released the names of the moderators for the presidential and vice presidential debates:

First presidential debate:

Lester Holt, Anchor, NBC Nightly News

Monday, September 26, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY

Vice presidential debate:

Elaine Quijano, Anchor, CBSN and Correspondent, CBS News

Tuesday, October 4, Longwood University, Farmville, VA

Second presidential debate (town meeting):

Martha Raddatz, Chief Global Affairs Correspondent and Co-Anchor of “This Week,” ABC

Anderson Cooper, Anchor, CNN

Sunday, October 9, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO

Third presidential debate:

Chris Wallace, Anchor, Fox News Sunday

Wednesday, October 19, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV

As Media Matters’ Cristina Lopez noted, it certainly looks like Donald Trump’s efforts to bully the commission into picking moderators of his choice paid off.

Noting that the Commission was more cautious than usual, due to Trump’s pre-debate temper tantrum about bias, Lopez wrote:

Trump had also previously hinted at who he thought would be acceptable and unacceptable as debate moderators, noting “he would ‘object to moderators who he considered to be ‘unfair.’” While discussing possible debate moderators Trump claimed that “certain moderators would be unacceptable,” while also noting that NBC’s Lester Holt, who the commission chose, “is a good guy.”

Lo and behold, Holt is one of the moderators and so is Fox’s Wallace, the first time a Fox News host has been selected. Missing are any Latinos whom Trump might object to based on their ethnicity - the same way he objected to a Hispanic judge on the non-ethnic-related Trump University fraud case. Nor is there any moderator from a network as blatantly liberal as Fox is blatantly conservative: Rachel Maddow or Democracy Now's Amy Goodman would have been better counterbalance to Wallace, e.g., than the Trump-promoted Holt. That's not to cast aspersions on Holt but he's just not comparable.

But wait, there’s more. As Think Progress pointed out, Wallace has a “huge conflict of interest” via Roger Ailes. Since resigning in disgrace as CEO of Fox News over allegations of sexual and other misconduct, Ailes has reportedly been advising Trump (though the campaign denies a formal role). And Wallace's statement about Ailes' ouster reveals he remains an Ailes loyalist:

Roger Ailes is the best boss I’ve had in almost a half a century in journalism. I admired him tremendously professionally, and loved him personally…

There are people in tears. I shed mine a couple of days ago when the stories started to come out, that made this day seem like it was likely. I never knew a boss who transmitted a sense of mission, a team of common purpose, more than Roger did. And the thing that’s different from any place I ever worked is, people feel a personal connection to Roger, and I think a lot of people feel a deep sense of personal loss.

Just as bad, if not worse, is the fact that Wallace rejects the claim that Fox is a conservative news outlet.

Wallace is probably the best choice among the Fox hosts, but that's not reassuring given such a terribly low bar. Don't believe me? Check out Wallace’s infamous 2006 interview with former president Bill Clinton, below, and you might get an idea of the kind of “fairness and balance” Hillary Clinton may be in for.

Follow @NewsHounds

Follow @NewsHoundEllen

Do you like this post?

Showing 17 reactions

commented 2016-09-05 09:44:10 -0400 · Flag

You guys miss the point. Wallace is the best possible pick from the Foxies. If they hadn’t picked a Foxie, there would have been a mess. I think you want these debates to happen. The world needs to see Trump in a 1 in 1 environment.

commented 2016-09-05 02:43:34 -0400 · Flag

A Fair and Balanced third debate should not be held unless a Latino is selected to co-moderate with fox moderator Wallace.

commented 2016-09-04 23:22:28 -0400 · Flag

Back in the Battle of Stalingrad, snipers figured out that some buildings had become canon proof. That is buildings that had been hit by canon or bomb and hadn’t initially fallen down. Successive hits would fail to bring down the building and it would progressively get more bomb resistant.

Hillary is like that. She’s the big fish at the bottom of the pond with all the fishing lures hanging out of her mouth. I expect her to do fantastic the first two debates. Trump may wind up crying.

That’s where Wallace comes in. If Trump doesn’t have much heart for this, Faux does. They have always been good little Nazi’s, dutifully following orders.

commented 2016-09-04 15:15:44 -0400 · Flag

Wallace is the appeasement. A. Cooper won’t be as one sided. There isn’t one bit of damning information not already published and scrutinized that the entire world has not seen about Clinton. Hillary has handled it all and will continue to do so without faltering. Everyone who is going to vote for Hillary won’t be jumping ship. The good news would be if any Trumpites crossed over but it’s unlikely. I think the outcome of the debates will either be adding to Clinton’s votes or not. It won’t be the votes being taken from Clinton. Will he even show up for all three? It doesn’t even matter because with all of Trump’s dirt and every lie, also his indisputable ignorance, his supporters are not going to change their minds either. He could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and they’d still vote for him. Trump is one big dumbass with no depth of intelligence moral inadequacy or convictions. He’s the pied piper of scaredy cats.

commented 2016-09-04 14:39:40 -0400 · Flag

I share Kevin’s optimisim, i.e. that Trump will implode if anything like a serious question is handed to him. He’s used to being in charge and the media have been giving him a lot of slack. In anything even remotely ressembling a proper debate (no scripted questions), he can be counted on to throw a tantrum. I doubt that even Roger Ailes can find a crack in Hillary’s armor: she’s been around a long time and for most of the past 30 years she’s been under incredible scrutiny.

CNN will air the biographies of both candidates at the end of this week. A little detail reveals their true mindset: Hillary’s biography is subtitled “unfinished business” which doesn’t sound even remotely as favorable as the “all business” subtitle selected for Donald. The devil is truly in the detail.

commented 2016-09-04 13:20:07 -0400 · Flag

Dave, that’s not quite accurate. The best we could have hoped for would be to not have the debate commission use anyone from Fox News. Including Chris Wallace lends them legitimacy. True, Wallace may sink that idea by doing what people here are concerned about. But the real point is that Fox News is not a legitimate news channel, and mainstream outlets ignore that distinction at their peril.

commented 2016-09-04 11:07:59 -0400 · Flag

If Little Chrissie takes ill, Fux will substitute Goofy Doocy for him.

commented 2016-09-04 08:57:16 -0400 · Flag

Get over it. This is the best you could have hoped for. It could have been a lot worse. They could have picked Bret Baeir.

commented 2016-09-03 16:14:17 -0400 · Flag

I’m still not convinced that Trump will actually appear at all three debates, particularly if he tanks in the first one. I also believe the first one is the key.

It’s true that Wallace may try to stack the deck for Trump in a third debate, but if he does so that blatantly, he will simply provide glaring evidence of what this site has been exposing for years – the obvious bias of Fox News to the right wing and the GOP. If he were to spend a full debate throwing happy softballs to Trump and vicious browbeatings to Clinton, he’d simply provide soundbites for years of why people shouldn’t watch Fox News.

I’m more concerned about Roger Ailes being the one providing Trump with gotcha lines and insults for the first debate. Ailes believes that the audience will remember a huge moment more than they’ll remember a wonkish discussion of policy.

Think in terms of Ailes’ prior success in 1984 with the Reagan age joke during his debate with Mondale. Think in terms of Lloyd Bentsen’s demolition of Dan Quayle on a debate stage in 1988. In 1992, Bill Clinton was able to use this to his advantage in the town hall debate, wherein he had an answer for every wonkish question sent up to him. It didn’t matter what he was saying – just that he was totally at ease in the room and had clear answers about everything, while Bush looked uncomfortable and sometimes confused. And in 2012, we had the famous backfire moment in the second debate where Romney was caught telling a flat out lie in one of his windups.

My concern is that Ailes will attempt to set up a moment wherein Trump bashes Clinton on a vicious personal level, in the hopes of knocking her off her focus. One or two of those could wind up being the repeated soundbite of the night, even if Clinton, as expected, cleans his clock. Ailes will try to create a media moment out of the mud-throwing, and he’s always had success when doing so.

commented 2016-09-03 15:03:45 -0400 · Flag

Wallace is such a right wing hack, and the simple fact he doesn’t want to admit it publicly is what makes him such a dishonest and seditious sack of human waste.
Giving the drumpf such a sympathetic shill to rub his sweaty underbelly is an insult to our political process.

commented 2016-09-03 11:35:39 -0400 · Flag

Trump talked about “being rigged” and Wallace will show him how.

commented 2016-09-03 10:28:01 -0400 · Flag

Obviously the Electoral Commission is drunk on rightwing fucking stupid, why else would Fox News be considered worthy of a presidental debate?

commented 2016-09-03 02:28:59 -0400 · Flag

Off subject, sorry. Why are we hearing so little about the Attempted Rape of a Minor charge Trump is facing? WTF happens if he is indicted?

commented 2016-09-03 02:26:16 -0400 · Flag

I am disgusted. Very revealing that the Electoral Commission (made up of nominees from D and R head offices) has bent over backwards to appease the jerk of all jerks – the jelly babies at the top of the R-Souls are clearly going all the way (to the bottom) with Trump.

commented 2016-09-03 01:15:23 -0400 · Flag

David Lindsay,
Those are my concerns, exactly.

commented 2016-09-02 22:30:00 -0400 · Flag

Hillary is walking right into a rigged game. Little Chrissie will toss pre-rehearsed softball questions to T-Rump, and then sit silently as T-Rump endlessly pontificates. By contrast, Little Chrissie will hector Hillary throughout with rounds of questions on Benghazi, emails and the Clinton Foundation.

commented 2016-09-02 21:00:52 -0400 · Flag

I’m not bothered by Holt or Raddatz, but the thing that bothers me most about Wallace is that he is moderating the third debate. It would be much better if he went first. Going last, he could be anything but moderate.

If Trump tanks in the first two debates (which I think is highly likely) Wallace will be there as an insurance policy for the third debate. If Trump looked really bad in the other two, Wallace would be there to give Hillary the shiv before she got out the door. I don’t trust Faux as far as I can throw them.