3 on 1

Tony Katz:

The debate moderators were terrible, and we should say so. David Muir and Linsey Davis were awful. In this debate between President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. If one wants to ask hard questions. If one then wants to push back on those hard questions… like the answers they get makes perfect sense to me, makes absolutely perfect sense to me. That is not a problem. That is not an issue. That is what one would expect. But this fact checking that took place only on Trump and not on Kamala Harris. And you tell me, like Abby Phillip tried to tell me, if you have asymmetrical lying, you’re gonna have asymmetrical fact checking.

It was Kamala Harris who brought up, well, Donald Trump said “there were very fine people on both sides talking about Nazis in Charlottesville”, an absolutely, completely debunked story.

And no pushback from David Muir or Linsey Davis. When you are the moderators, you do not want to be in the debate. You ask questions, you engage pushback, which I think is extremely valuable and I think we all do. I really do not believe that there are people out there whodon’t want a pushback to “wait, you’re not answering the question,” but they want it all the way around. They want to see the politician actually engage in an answer. Now it’s a shame when that has to happen because the answers don’t come. Performance art is what happens, which was so much of Kamala Harris, in this debate, anyway. But we expect it, we do want it, and we respect it when it happens. But when it happens only in one direction, Linsey Davis should not think of herself as somebody worthy of respect. Same thing with David Muir., because they didn’t do the thing that was worthy of respect. I have no problem if Donald Trump is going to say he didn’t lose the 2020 election, I have no problem with somebody looking him in the eye and going “seriously”? That’s fine by me. But if Kamala Harris. Is going to move through a conversation by saying, “you know, my values haven’t changed”, but here’s what I’m saying now and you’re like, well, it how does that comport with what you said in the past and why should anybody believe you? You don’t push on that? You don’t press on that well then Good Lord. Why should we even begin to think of you in a respectful way? And I don’t think anybody should have respect for what took place in this debate. Let me take it a step further. It is impossible to think that any Republican should appear on ABC ever again. George Stephanopoulos didn’t teach these people? Now you know. This isn’t about pushback on Trump. That’s fine. It’s about the unwillingness to push back on Kamala Harris. So, when people discuss this debate as three on one, it isn’t complaining. It isn’t a well, you’re blaming the refs. Yeah, it’s you can’t win the game, so you blame the refs. It was indeed a gang up situation. Allah Candy Crowley back during the Mitt Romney debate in 2012.

It is what it is, what it is, and Republicans have to respond by saying we’re done here. Thanks. We’ll go CBS and NBC until they screw it up. But we’re done with you. We don’t show up. We don’t do the interviews, we don’t talk to you. We don’t invite you. We don’t see you in the spin room. Goodbye. And that means every senator, every congressman, every governor, every mayor. We don’t show up. Now, you might forgive a mayor if there’s something that could really help their town, but we don’t show up. We don’t do this. We don’t do this because we’re not gonna put up with it. And America should be really fine with that as America. As a matter of fact, America should celebrate this idea. Because ABC did not engage in journalism. ABC did not engage in news. And they did it in one direction. So, they have proven their bias. Thus, there must be a remedy. There must be a punishment. There must be. Even if you don’t think in those terms, try these terms. There must be some self-respect. Republicans need to get some self-respect. Now people on the left are gonna say “self-respect? You guys nominated Trump?” You wanna debate take. I’ve already said that if Ron DeSantis was the nominee. None of this happens, and Kamala Harris is still like, trying to figure out which end is up. Trump cannot control himself. He can’t. Even when he’s got like good things to say, which he had a series of those things the last night in the debate, he just can’t control himself. And then, ohh, so annoying. So very annoying. If you have self-respect. You cannot allow yourself to be abused. Trump’s the nominee. I have to deal with my reality. My reality is Trump or Kamala Harris, and I think we all know what it is that we have to do when that is the choice. I thought so. But self-respect means looking at the abusive party and saying I’m not gonna be abused anymore. No Republican needs ABC News… (time) to move on, to go forward. It’s not necessary. You don’t have to have a discussion with them. You don’t have to talk to them. You don’t have to share the idea. You could do that in other places. You could do that directly with the people via Instagram or YouTube Shorts. You don’t need ABC. Now, if ABC wants to go about hiring people who will ask a better questions and push back in a better way, things could change. But I think the Republican Party should be very, very clear. We’re done here. ABC proved itself to be unworthy. They didn’t have to. They could have pushed back in both ways. They didn’t. And I think the only response, the only rational response is to say we’re done here. Thanks, but it’s not me, it’s you. And this and and engage the breakup and don’t go back. Don’t go back to the abusive spouse, the abusive boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever you wanna call it. Time to find someone better. Maybe one day they’ll actually change. But not until they make some real changes.