Fox & Friends Preemptively Complains About Fact-Checking In Debate: ‘Let The Candidates Do It’

Fox & Friends hosts preemptively slammed the idea of CNN presidential debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash “fact-checking” former President Donald Trump or President Joe Biden during Thursday’s live showdown, calling on the CNN hosts to “just stay out of it.”

In the run up to the event Trump and his supporters have claimed the bias of the moderators involved would make it unfair and that he’d be debating three people. On Monday, CNN anchor Kasie Hunt cut off Trump aide Karoline Leavitt for attacking the moderators.

In response to the narrative, CNN’s political director David Chalian moderators would not fact check in realtime.

Speaking to the Washington Post, his position was a little more nuanced: “Obviously, if there is some egregious fact that needs to be checked or the record needs to be made clear, Jake and Dana can do that. But that’s not their role. They are not here to participate in this debate. They are here to facilitate a debate between Trump and Biden.”

For hosts on Fox & Friends, however, Chalian’s assurances have only served to create more debate over what was an acceptable intervention by a moderator when it came to an “egregious fact.” Ultimately, with each their different reasons, the team decided they didn’t want any fact-checking.

While host Brian Kilmeade said that a back and forth between moderator and candidate would turn the broadcast into an interview, co-host Ainsley Earhardt complained that this would also “take time away from the candidates.”

Co-host Lawrence Jones, meanwhile, joining the show from a Georgia diner, admitted that when it came to co-host Steve Doocy’s hypothetical about a correction on inflation rates, neither candidate could agree on the inflation percentage anyway.

JONES: Some of the questions may be annoying. But I have no problem with them asking any question [in particular]. The thing that I want them to do is, ask the question and get out of the way. Let the candidates respond however they are going to respond and then move onto the next question. But to badger people based on political and partisan motives I don’t think is going to serve American people at all.

DOOCY: Let me ask you this, for example, Joe Biden comes out and says ‘when I took over inflation was 9 percent on the final rebuttal.’ Do you want to see a moderator come in there and say, ‘Mr. President, it wasn’t 9%? It was 1.4%’? Or do you want to let the people at home wait for the spin room, where they fact-check him? What do you think is a moderator’s role?

JONES: What I want to happen is Donald Trump to look straight at him and go: ‘Joe, you know that’s not true. That’s absolutely not true.’ And then for him to tell what the inflation was and then use it in ads. Then, as you said, in the spin room… But for the moderators to somehow become referees. I mean, think about it, Brian, there has been no media organization really that fact-check Joe Biden…

KILMEADE: Ever.

JONES [cont’d]: …when he continuously says inflation was that rate when it’s not true. We can’t depend on them during the primetime moment to do that. So just stay out of it. Let the candidates check each other and we can handle it during the spin room and do all our analysis there.

KILMEADE: Take the question and parry it. You have to make your own adjustments within what the moderators are giving you.

DOOCY: Ultimately it comes down to this. CNN got tagged badly when [anchor] Candy Crowley corrected Mitt Romney and did live fact-checking. You don’t want to do live fact-checking. She was wrong.

KILMEADE: Here is the scenario, if they say Donald Trump comes out today and says ‘I’m going to exonerate all the January 6ers’ and Trump comes out and says ‘I’m not going to do that.’ Do you want Jake Tapper to say here’s the quote? If Jake Tapper says here the quote the president would answer back again. So, then of course it becomes more of an interview.

DOOCY: I don’t want any live fact-checking, period. They can fact-check each other.

EARHARDT: That’s the problem when the moderators start fact-checking and talk too much and ask really long questions it takes time away from the candidates. Everyone is tuning in to see the two candidates.

KILMEADE: That’s right. So let them fact-check each other.

Watch above on Fox News.

This article has been updated.