Two of the most respected, longest serving voices in the world of traditional, mainstream conservativism are National Review’s Editor-in-Chief Rich Lowry and former SDNY prosecutor-turned-author and columnist Andrew C. McCarthy. They co-host “The McCarthy Report” podcast which is among my “must listens (as is NRO’s The Editors” which Rich hosts as well. They joined me today to review the debate Tuesday night with a focus on moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis and the brass at ABC and Disney. (Disney owns ABC.)
As I note in the interview below, I have co-moderated five GOP presidential primary debates with big networks as the representative of Salem Media –four with CNN in 2015-16, and one with NBC this past November and I know how these debates are awarded, organized and how the teams of of network and corporate folks script it all with the moderators, rehearse it often, and time it carefully. I also know that the very top executives of the networks involved are very involved in the productions. While I did work for NBC from May of 2016 until October or November of 2019, I have never been paid by CNN or ABC, did not work for either CNN or NBC at the time of the debates I participated in, but also have a rule not only of confidentiality about what was discussed in the debate preps which I adhere to, and a personal policy of never discussing colleagues past or present. I am not bound by either agreement or practice to stay silent on the ABC/Disney debacle.
Audio:
09-13hhs-lowry-mccarthy
Transcript:
HH: As you know, the fallout from the ABC News-Disney debate debacle continues to grow. And more will grow throughout the weekend as Donald Trump announced yesterday he will not be doing any more debates. And I think he’s right in that choice, but I’ll talk about it this hour, the debate that happened, the fallout with Rich Lowry, who is the editor-in-chief of National Review, and Andrew C. McCarthy, former federal prosecutor at the Southern District of New York, author/columnist, and of course, co-contributor with Rich Lowry on The McCarthy Report podcast. Rich Lowry also hosts National Review’s The Editors podcast. Both of those podcasts will be mentioned in my Washington Post column on Monday as must-listening to. Rich, good morning. I don’t know that we have Andy, yet. We’re trying to find him. I think maybe the alarm clock didn’t go off. How are you, Rich Lowry?
RL: Good. How are you?
HH: Good. Thank you for getting up very early this morning. We keep trying various numbers for Andy, so he’ll eventually join us. You hear my setup, Rich, and I’ll play a little bit of tape yesterday. The very best dissection of that debate that I’ve heard came from the Ruthless podcast. Josh Holmes has negotiated these before. I’ve done five of these debates with the big networks. They were GOP presidential primary debates – 4 with CNN, 1 with NBC. I know how they’re run. I know how they’re scripted. I know how the preparation goes on, 30-50 people, top brass. Muir and Davis don’t bear all of the weight for what happened. But what, I heard, I listened to The McCarthy Report. Everyone should. I have not listened to The Editors emergency podcast, yet. I will today. Your assessment, I know that Trump could have done better, he ought to have prepared more, all that stuff. What was your assessment of ABC’s role?
RL: It doesn’t look any better in retrospect. It’s horrible. And you know, I’ve been looking back over the transcript kind of in the cold light of day a couple days afterwards. I don’t think Trump’s performance is any better. I think Harris is actually worse if you read it on the page. But the moderators are just awful. One thing I didn’t notice in real time, towards the end, there was a bit of a fact check, it was kind of between a fact check and a question to Harris after Trump had said, you know, she was sent over there to negotiate prior to the Ukraine war, and look what happened. The war happened anyway. And I think it was David Muir who said oh, so you’re saying she negotiated with Putin? Madame Vice President, have you ever met Vladimir Putin? That’s not what he said. He didn’t say she met with Vladimir Putin. He says that she was sent over there, which she was. She met with Zelenskyy right before the invasion. So again, if you’re going to fact check, you shouldn’t fact check at all, because it’s too hard to do in real time. But if you’re going to do it, you’ve got to be correct, (1), and you can’t do it just for one side. And that’s what they did. And I was talking to a friend who was at CNN prior to the CNN Trump-Biden debate, and a bigwig from CNN came over and was chitchatting, and said just watch. You just watch. After this debate, CNN will not be the story. I guarantee you CNN will not be the story. Clearly, that was the directive from above. You’re just moderators. It’s not about you. You’re not the candidate. And the very least, no one at ABC said that to these two, and may have indeed said the opposite.
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