The Media Research Center’s Rich Noyes appeared on Fox Business Networks’ Risk and Reward Monday to discuss the bias of Sunday’s presidential debate moderators. Noyes noted that the moderators Martha Raddatz of ABC and Anderson Cooper of CNN interrupted Donald Trump by a roughly 2-1 margin. “But it was more than interruptions. You know, they were challenging Donald Trump,” he continued, “They were pressing him in a very adversarial way. They asked her tough questions but not in that challenging adversarial way.”
Noyes called out Raddatz for allowing cheers for Clinton to go unchallenged while silencing Trump’s. And he slammed her for getting wrapped up in an argument with Trump:
Martha Raddatz, one of the moderators from ABC, actually began debating Trump herself at one point. She was instructing him like she was a school teacher telling him about what the military does in terms of advance notification when it goes on a military campaign. You put these things together and it was a very hostile playing field for Trump. That makes it three debates in a row where the media, the journalists are participating as moderators were really putting their thumb on the scales against the Republicans.
There was also a difference in how the moderators fact-checked the candidates, according to Noyes. “There were deleted emails after a subpoena was issued… there were somethings you could question, there were somethings you could challenge,” he argued, “But you know, she got away with a blanket statement and walked away from it without being followed up.” The difference for Trump was that Cooper “pressed [Trump] over and over and over again to get the answer he wanted” when it came to the Access Hollywood tape.
The bias of the moderators was reported by the MRC long before the debate began. For instance, Raddatz got into an argument with vice presidential candidate Mike Pence over whether or not Clinton’s campaign used birtherism in the 2008 campaign. Raddatz defended Clinton saying that it wasn’t used by her campaign.
Transcript below:
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FBN
Risk and Reward
October 10, 2016
5:46:35 PM EasternELIZABETH MCDONALD: Media bias alert: a report says there were a lot of interruptions of the candidates last night, mostly with Donald Trump. Our count, Trump had at least 13 interactions with the moderators versus 2 for Hillary Clinton. Media Research Center Director Rich Noyes in not surprised. Rich, does your count—it that match up with what we found that Donald Trump had more interruptions than Hillary Clinton from the moderators?
RICH NOYES: Yeah, it was about 2-1. You know, about 20-something interruptions, you know some of those might be multiple interactions, to fewer than a dozen for Hillary Clinton. But it was more than interruptions. You know, they were challenging Donald Trump. They were pressing him in a very adversarial way. They asked her tough questions but not in that challenging adversarial way.
They challenged the audience when the audience would cheer on Trump's behalf, but not when it interrupted on Hillary Clinton's behalf. Martha Raddatz, one of the moderators from ABC, actually began debating Trump herself at one point. She was instructing him like she was a school teacher telling him about what the military does in terms of advance notification when it goes on a military campaign. You put these things together and it was a very hostile playing field for Trump. That makes it three debates in a row where the media, the journalists are participating as moderators were really putting their thumb on the scales against the Republicans.
MCDONALD: Yeah actually, I thought it was a riveting debate because the moderators were getting in there and trying to press the candidates. However, and you make a good point, I do think they could have pushed back on Hillary Clinton when Donald Trump said, “You used bleach bit on your private server emails.” And I think that's where it sort of fell down, that the moderators did not press Hillary Clinton on the private email server. What did you think of that?
NOYES: Yeah, she said that everything that Trump said was false. Well you know, there was the bleach bit that happened. There were deleted emails after a subpoena was issued. It wasn’t, you know, there were somethings you could question, there were somethings you could challenge. But you know, she got away with a blanket statement and walked away from it without being followed up. You know, contrast to Anderson Coopers’ questions at the beginning of the debate about this inside-- Access Hollywood tape where he pressed him over and over and over again to get the answer he wanted. It was two different approaches, one for the Republican and one for the Democrat.
MCDONALD: That’s an important point Rich. Thank you for that comparison, it’s really illuminating. Always great to have you on, thanks again.
