Chris Wallace is getting some good reviews for his performance as a debate moderator, but let’s take a closer look, shall we? In part, Wallace is getting credit for Donald Trump having been slightly more prepared than he had been in the previous two debates. Early on, Trump was at least making an effort to talk policy (in that detail-free, lie-filled Donald Trump way) and avoid interrupting. It deteriorated as the evening went on and was always kind of a sham, but let’s not give Wallace too much credit for improvement on that front. And let’s take a look at his questions, shall we?
Wallace was the moderator from Fox News, not just in title but in spirit. But if you need to know more than that, well:
The Supreme Court is a question of guns and abortion and that’s it, in Wallace-world. He made free use of the propaganda term “partial birth abortion.”
On the economy, Wallace claimed that Clinton’s plan “is similar to the Obama stimulus plan in 2009, which has led to the slowest GDP growth since 1949” and “is your plan basically more, even more of the Obama stimulus?” Dude. The stimulus came during a massive financial crisis and economic collapse. The problem was that the stimulus was too small to address the magnitude of the crisis … so if Clinton’s plan is “basically more,” then that’s a good thing. The stimulus did not lead to slow GDP growth—that was a result of the problems the stimulus was intended to address in the first place—it just didn’t lead away from a crashing economy quickly enough. Because, again, it wasn’t big enough.
Wallace might get credit for getting Trump on the record that he won’t necessarily respect the outcome of the election—but having done that, Wallace proceeded with his questions as if it was business as usual. Those questions included an attempt to coach Trump into a semi-accurate answer on Syria:
Wallace: Let's turn to Aleppo. Mr. Trump, in the last debate you were both asked about the situation in the Syrian city of Aleppo, and I want to follow up on that because you said several things in that debate which were not true, sir. You said that Aleppo has basically fallen. In fact, there are — [...]
Wallace: Well there are quarter of a million people still living there and being slaughtered. [...]
Wallace: If I may just finish here. And you also said that Syria and Russia are busy fighting ISIS. In fact, they have been the ones who have been bombing and shelling eastern Aleppo, and they just announced a humanitarian pause, in effect admitting they have been bombing and shelling in Aleppo. Would you like to clear that up, sir?
Mr. Trump, here are the specific things you got wrong. Care to take a second stab at it?
That, though, was eclipsed by the moment in which Trump denied having advocated more countries, including Japan, getting nuclear weapons. Wallace’s response:
Wallace: Okay.
Here’s the thing. Trump didn't just say Japan should get nukes. He said it to Chris Wallace. And Wallace let his denial slide with a simple “okay.”
But the final segment of the debate was the Fox Newsiest of them all: the national debt. Yes, we needed an entire debate segment on that, but climate change? Pfft. No need to mention that. And it almost goes without saying that, during the debt segment, Wallace recycled a host of fear-mongering lies about Medicare and Social Security.
So no, Wallace really wasn’t all that. Unless the “that” is “a purveyor of right-wing talking points masked as ‘fair and balanced’ questions.”
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