Right and Left Hail NBC News for ‘Professional and Fair’ Republican Debate
AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell
NBC News received high marks from across the political spectrum for its well-executed hosting of Wednesday night’s third 2024 GOP primary debate.
The debate, which was moderated by NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker, and Salem Radio’s Hugh Hewitt, kicked off with flamethrowing candidate Vivek Ramaswamy taking a swipe at the network and moderators.
“Think about who’s moderating this debate,” Ramaswamy said in his opening statement. “This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk. We’d have 10 times the viewership.”
“And we’ve got the Democrats and we’ve got Kristen Welker here. Do you think the Democrats would actually hire Greg Gutfeld to host a Democratic debate? They wouldn’t do it. Kristen, I’m going to use this time because this is about you in the media and the corrupt media establishment,” he fumed, offering some red meat to his supporters.
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel defended the decision and took a swipe at Ramaswamy for only looking for friendly questions. “If you can’t take a tough question, and you probably shouldn’t be running for president,” she concluded, after noting:
I stand by our choice to go with a non-conservative media outlet. I think NBC did a great job. We are not gonna win elections if we sit in an echo chamber of Republican media.
Many political journalists, pundits, and observers also had high praise for McDaniel’s decision to let NBC host a debate after Fox News and Fox Business Network handled the first two, which involved more candidates on stage and devolved into chaos at times.
“Credit where it’s due: this was a good, substantive debate. Professional and fair. NBC did well,” wrote conservative radio host Buck Sexton on Twitter.
“NBC News did a much better job maintaining control of this debate than Fox News did with their debates and they did a better job keeping things on track and on topic,” added Ryan Saavedra of the right-wing website the Daily Wire.
“That was the best debate this cycle. NBC did a much better job that the awful Fox News debate. They controlled the room, kept it civil and on point, did a pretty good job,” noted conservative podcaster Josh Power.
https://twitter.com/joshpower80/status/1722451814623101097?s=43&t=Fw09uW9OwqGjW0ZW52Q4KQ
“Absolutely humiliating that NBC ran such a better debate than Fox. There was no survivor ‘who would you vote off the island’ question. No constant shouting. Conservative media causes many problems,” added hard right commentator Gregg Re from the Daily Wire.
Matt Lewis from the Daily Beast replied, “Smart move by Lester and Kristen Welker not to take the bait and give Vivek the attention he wanted from his cheap stunt.”
Semafor’s David Weigel added, “Moderators simply not letting the candidates squabble – a Welker specialty if you remember the final Trump/Biden debate.”
“Good for the moderators for shutting Vivek down when he tried to interrupt,” noted the Atlantic’s Tom Nichols.
Below are some additional reactions:
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