Yes, Donald Trump Can Win the First Debate—Here’s How
Fox News host Chris Wallace, the moderator for the final debate, has already announced that he doesn’t think fact-checking is his job. NBC’s Lester Holt, the respected Nightly News anchor, hasn’t weighed in on the question. The Clinton campaign has begun working the refs, demanding that moderators indeed check the candidates’ facts. Trump is, hilariously and predictably, on record saying they should not.
Such a stance would benefit Trump, just as it helped Romney in 2012. As I wrote at the time:
Romney shook his Etch-a-Sketch and lied his way through the entire debate with no challenge from moderator Jim Lehrer. He simply denied he has proposed a $5 trillion tax cut. He insisted he wouldn’t cut the education budget or Pell Grants, when he will. He claimed the Affordable Care Act raised taxes by a trillion dollars. He essentially revived the idea of death panels by saying Obamacare established “a board that will tell people what kind of treatment they’re going to get.”
Romney was allowed to claim his massive tax cuts for the rich would be “revenue neutral” by promising to close loopholes that were never enumerated. Obama failed to hit his opponent on numerous points where he should have drawn blood, but Lehrer’s silence enabled Romney’s assault on the incumbent president.