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The media tried to keep the current President and the former one on a short leash Thursday evening, but failed in many ways to keep them in check.
In a unorthodox presidential debate that focused more on optics than substance, a visibly shaky President Joe Biden clashed with a manipulative Donald Trump, who kept his temper but used the time allotted him by CNN to largely avoid moderators’ questions and instead spew a host of inaccuracies. leaving his opponent ill-matched to combat him on screen.
CNN’s moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, did keep both candidates on better behavior than others have in the past. CNN’s ability to cut the microphones of Trump and Biden assisted the duo in maintaining order. But it didn’t help them prod candidate Trump to answer important questions that were put directly to him, including his stance on climate change or whether he would accept the results of a fair election.
CNN still came under scrutiny for not offering more fact checking on camera in real time. The moderators did not correct the candidates, particularly Trump, when they veered from basic facts or history, such as Trump’s portrayal of Democrats’ policies on late-term abortion. And they allowed a protracted — and bizarre — exchange about the duo’s abilities on the golf course to proceed.
CNN had a lot riding on the telecast. Under Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s ratings have sagged and its programming has proved lackluster when compared to that of MSNBC and Fox News Channel. Few of the network’s recent content gambits have worked, including an ill-fated morning show and a buzzy pairing of Charles Barkley and Gayle King. CNN produced the spectacle rather than the typical non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates, and had augmented visibility because its feed and trademarks were seen fully across every other outlet that picked it up, including Fox News Channel and NBC News.
CNN’s telecast, however, did prove revelatory. It suggested concerns about Biden’s age and strength had validity and it showed Trump unable to offer concrete answers on some of the most important questions facing Americans.
Other news outlets also tried to use the debate to their advantage. CBS News introduced a new “CBS Confirmed” segment that offered fact checks on many of the things Americans heard this evening. NewsNation brought independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy to analyze the proceedings with anchor Chris Cuomo.
Some analysts found both the performance of both candidates weak. CBS News’ Margaret Brennan asked what young voters would think after “they see two men, one nearly 80, the other one in his 80s, not be able to articulate, clearly, what their positions are on many of the most essential issues at a time of crisis?” On Fox News Channel, Harold Ford Jr., one of the liberal co-hosts on “The Five,” noted that “You had two presidential candidates arguing like they were at a public golf course, arguing who was a ten handicap or six handicap while Americans are actually paying too much for food, too much for gas, worried about their kids and this is what we dealt with.”
CNN’s presentation wasn’t perfect, but few examples of coverage surrounding Trump are. When Trump and Biden debated for the first time in 2020, moderator Chris Wallace failed to keep the former, then the president, from interrupting the latter. That event was organized by the CPD. CNN’s last major event focused on Trump, a 2023 town hall with the former president, went off the rails quickly, as a combative Trump bickered with moderator Kaitlan Collins and was egged on by a live crowd of supporters.
