Fox’s Martha McCallum Vows ‘We Will Absolutely Ask’ Trump About Indictments During First GOP Debate
Fox News
While whether or not former President Donald Trump will even attend the first GOP presidential debate on August 23 remains an open question, Fox News host and debate co-moderator Martha MacCallum already knows what she will be asking Trump — and his four criminal indictments are “absolutely” on the table.
MacCallum, who will be moderating the debate with Fox News’s Bret Baier, sat with Politico’s Sophie Gardner for the Women Rule newsletter to discuss the debate among other subjects surrounding the current political environment. Among the topics discussed were reproductive rights, an issue MacCallum said Republicans “ignored” in the 2022 midterms to their “peril”:
[Republicans] woke up to discover that there were a lot of voters, especially younger voters, who felt very strongly about this, and independent voters that they lost. And I do think that one of the biggest constituencies that matters in this election is suburban women, and that is an issue that is very significant for them.
We will absolutely make sure that people have the opportunity to let everyone know where they stand on this issue, whatever side of it they are on. I think it’s really important for all candidates, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, to articulate where they stand on it very clearly. They’ll absolutely have that opportunity.
That question is not the only hot-button issue to watch for next Wednesday. Trump’s mounting legal issues don’t just affect the electorate, they have an impact on his fellow candidates. Gardner quoted MacCallum as calling the lack of evidence of election fraud in 2020 “stunning,” yet some Republicans still insist that it existed. So, will she call them out on it?
Of course. That’s something we do on a daily basis on our shows, and in every interview, you always have to bring people back to the facts as they exist and challenge them.
That being said, people have a right to say what their own beliefs are on these issues. But as a journalist, your job is to make sure that you keep things focused and that you hold people to the facts as they exist, and you allow them to make their arguments.
And then there’s the elephant that may or may not be in the room. MacCallum is also prepared to question Trump on his legal issues, should he grace the Fiserv stage in Milwaukee:
It’s a huge story and the former president has made his feelings known. … And if he’s on stage, we will absolutely ask him questions about the indictments, and I’m sure he would want to address it and respond to it.
MacCallum’s interview was conducted before Trump canceled his plans to speak on Monday about his latest indictment in Georgia, and he’s seemingly ignoring the order of protection by Judge Tanya Chutkan (who is overseeing his third indictment case involving the 2020 election) to not talk publicly about the case.
