Lauer has not commented further on his performance.
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Then came Trump’s interview, in which Lauer never once pressed him for time. I mean, you can say, oh, isn’t that a awful thing?
Due to Lauer’s inability or flat out disinterest in holding Trump to high standards in his answers, the NY businessman was able to tell a number of lies that could be easily refuted by the press, such as Trump’s new claim to have been opposed to the war in Iraq.
The candidates spent almost eight minutes talking about fixing the VA health care system. He’s no pit bull, which is precisely why both political parties were able to accept him as a moderator.
Some of the criticism comes amid an ongoing debate over the way that the media is covering Clinton and Trump overall – as her supporters in particular have escalated criticism that she is being challenged on the tiniest of details while her Republican rival is being graded on a curve.
“He’s displayed a reckless level of ignorance and intolerance and that needs to be called out”, said Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon. You know that better than anybody.
Now, Lauer’s ineptitude aside, I do not think that he’s the main problem, although he’s an excellent test case for what we can expect in the debates.
“You know, every day that goes by this just becomes more and more of a reality television show, it’s not a serious presidential campaign, and it is beyond one’s imagination to have a candidate for president praising a Russian autocrat like Validmir Putin”, she said, after shaking her head in disbelief. The NBC reporter gleefully spoke of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s negative reaction to Clinton’s claim, “That had Paul Ryan firing away”. A spokeswoman for King’s show says that Trump was always booked for the Ora TV show, and that it is produced by Ora Media. Through July, Kessler had investigated the truth of 52 claims by Trump and awarded “four Pinocchios” to 33 of them, meaning they were “whoppers”. “Trump leads Clinton by 19 points among troops and veterans, according to a poll Wednesday by NBC News and Survey Monkey”. That’s what Lauer could’ve asked her, but he didn’t. One of them, she said, was her reliance on a private server and personal email account when she was US Secretary of State.
Trump fired back at Clinton, saying her comments were an effort to make up for a poor performance during the security forum.
“If he wasn’t good with Hillary Clinton, he was bad when handling Trump”, Noah bemoaned. If Trump can remain composed, like he did Wednesday night, he will continue to improve his image with the American people.
CNBC panelist Becky Quick learned the pitfalls in a GOP forum last fall when Trump pushed back against her question about something the candidate had said previously.
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Donald Trump particularly benefited from Lauer’s ineffectiveness as he practically blamed women for sexual assault in the military and suggested a military court – something that already exists – as a solution to that problem.
