Share

Highlights from NBC’s Commander in Chief Forum

Clinton’s campaign acknowledges that some of her liabilities stem from self-imposed errors, including her difficulty explaining the decision to install a private email server in her NY home.

Advertisement

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton openly criticised her Republican rival Donald Trump for an interview he gave to the Moscow-funded RT news channel. The email continues, “There’s worst part is, there’s nothing new about this happening”.

Interviewer Matt Lauer takes audience questions for presidential candidates. He made one knowing reference while interviewing Dana Carvey on “Today“.

Trump’s continued unvarnished praise instead of unequivocal condemnation for Putin is yet another example of where the party’s standard-bearer has broken with GOP orthodoxy. “You have a fan”, he said.

The New York Times ran one of the most loaded headlines I’ve ever seen on a news story: “Lauer Presses Clinton But Surrenders to Trump”.

The moderators of the debates – NBC’s Lester Holt on September 26, ABC’s Martha Raddatz on October 9 and Fox’s Chris Wallace on October 19 – saw Wednesday that Clinton and Trump employed rhetorical styles so different they might as well have been speaking different languages. Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace, moderator for the final upcoming presidential debate, says it should be up to the candidates to call out their opponent’s false claims.

“We have never been threatened by a single candidate running for president as we have been in this election”, she said at a news conference Thursday, arguing that Trump was treating the campaign as his own “celebrity reality TV program”. It’s a subtle difference.

Noah isn’t alone. Lauer’s performance during the event has been widely criticized by viewers, critics, and political pundits for botching the opportunity to get real answers on military and worldwide relations from the presidential candidates.

Perhaps Lauer should have pressed Trump harder on his Iraq war lie.

“Now, that is not just unpatriotic and insulting to the people of our country as well as to our commander in chief, it is scary”, Clinton said.

“What kind of research are you doing now?” “Most moderators, in the stress of the situation, don’t have the capacity”. Even some Clinton supporters will admit that she has mishandled – and often completely avoided – questions about her email and her family’s charitable foundation, fueling scrutiny of both.

In the most notable slight, Lauer did not fact-check Trump’s erroneous declaration that he had always been “totally against the war in Iraq”.

They don’t want Trump to get away with using bully tactics to dominate the debate. Result: He would have been accused of being biased towards the Republican presidential candidate because of his past Clinton association. “… It was sort of a question in the form of a statement”. Though the moderator, Matt Lauer, has faced criticism for spending so much time on the issue, her responses also underscored the challenge she faces in moving on.

Advertisement

So much is a judgment call in the moment. “What I did learn is that our leadership, Barack Obama, did not follow what our experts. said to do”, Trump said. After a summer of success at the Conventions and the Olympics, we broke more new ground Wednesday night with the first ever Commander-in-Chief Forum. “It’s just not possible”.

Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Paralympics: Your Thursday Briefing