… not any of the seven candidates on the stage. It wasn’t even one of the candidates who weren’t on the stage — Donald Trump, Asa Hutchinson, and an assortment of also rans. The biggest loser of the debate was Fox Business Channel, with the RNC that arranged it a close runner-up.

We can put aside the bickering and bad behavior of the candidates on stage for this assessment. Yes, the ‘moderators’ let it get out of hand, but this is a debate, after all — and the candidates are the show. If they want to argue amongst themselves, the responsibility falls on the candidates more than the forum, and we can judge their worth as potential nominees accordingly. But right from the start, it became clear that the questions and topics could have been ghostwritten by MSNBC, making this more of a firing line than a debate to discuss conservative principles and policies, and deliberately manipulated to provide the ‘bad behavior’ that some candidates willingly provided.

It started off weird and only got worse. First off, the show started with a tag-team moderator monologue rather than a question (transcript courtesy of Fox Business Channel):

PERINO: Let’s get going. We are in this spacious, sunny place tonight designed to reflect the very nature and character of Ronald Reagan. It’s a place that makes you proud to be an American. Yet, today, our nation is drowning in division and incivility.

CALDERON: Voters say they dread the 2024 election and find politics exhausting. Two in three Americans think the country is on the wrong track, and three in four say that the economy is not in good shape.

VARNEY: Prices are up 18 percent since 2020. More than half of the U.S. population has little access to childcare; 85 percent of Americans say their personal finances are a source of stress.

PERINO: Americans want to believe a leader who says: you can follow me, I’ve got you, don’t worry. President Biden is trying to do that with Bidenomics.

VARNEY: And yesterday he joined the picket lines where auto workers are demanding more wages and job security.

And that led to the first question from Stuart Varney, which if it didn’t come from MSNBC might have been written in the West Wing:

Senator Scott, you recently reacted by praising Ronald Reagan for firing air traffic controllers in the 1980s, saying, you strike, you’re fired. Would you fire thousands of striking auto workers today, Senator?

A show of hands, please: how many GOP primary voter think the UAW strike is the top issue of the election cycle? It’s not even the top economic issue facing the US. Tim Scott tried to move the topic to immigration. Dana Perino stymied that by promising to discuss “the economy and jobs,” but then returned to the UAW strike instead:

PERINO: Well, I can promise you we are going to have a lot of questions on the border and immigration. But in the meantime, we want to talk about the economy and jobs, and especially want to talk about this strike for just a moment more. Mr. Ramaswamy, you’ve said you really empathize with the strikers. You’re standing next to Senator Scott and do you agree with what he said or I do you think he’s wrong?

Next up, Varney channeled his inner AOC:

VARNEY: Together the CEOs of General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis make 336 times the number of rank and — the member — number of rank and file workers. That’s just part of a wider income inequality trend in the country. The richest 1 percent now controls one-fifth of all income. Vice President Pence, last week you said you side with American workers, but you also support how these companies operate. Which is it?

Univision’s Ilia Calderón, whose inclusion in this debate will itself be debated endlessly — hopefully by the constituent committees of the RNC — actually improved the situation with the next question. Marginally, anyway:

CALDERON: We are going to give the topic of economy. But allow me to follow — the follow question, to Governor Christie. The government will shut down, if Congress does not reach a deal, by the end of this week. Vice President Pence warns that politics of quote, “Trump’s populist prodigies,” like Mr. Ramaswamy are a road to ruin, for the GOP. If the government shuts down, should voters blame populist Republicans?

How long have you stopped beating your wife might be a more fair question. Christie gave a pretty good “pox upon both houses” response, but only one sitting member of Congress was on stage last night, and it wasn’t Christie. Presidents don’t have any formal role in Congress’ budgeting process, and none of these candidates save Scott have any responsibility for it.

And this is just the first twenty minutes or so of last night’s debacle. This wasn’t a debate aimed at edifying choices for conservative and populist voters. This was a forum for media to take potshots at these candidates, get them to fight amongst themselves, and to make them look extreme. Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tim Scott took the bait (Haley repeatedly); Ron DeSantis, Christie, and Doug Burgum did not.

In the first half hour of the debate, the moderators never asked about China. They never asked about crime. They didn’t ask about the national debt. Not a question about energy until later, and I don’t recall the moderators asking anything at all related to national security or military preparedness. Various candidates brought these topics up, only to be slapped down by moderators in favor of topics like day-care subsidies, DACA and Dreamers, and so on.

This wasn’t a Republican debate. It was a media freak show, and they tried to make the candidates into sideshow geeks.

Here are a few more questions aimed at Republicans, supposedly out of interest from GOP primary voters:

CALDERON: Vice President Pence, in 2017, the Trump-Pence administration canceled DACA, which put the legal status of 600,000 Dreamers in the hands of the court. Dreamers work and they pay taxes. As president, if the Supreme Court ends DACA, would you work with Congress to reach a permanent solution for Dreamers?

CALDERON: Thank you. Well, we’re going to stay in the topic of crime, because it affects all of us. Governor Burgum, for the first time ever, a Univision poll found that mass shootings and gun safety are one of the most important issue for Latino voters. Mental health concerns are not unique to the United States, but gun violence is. What is your specific plan to curb gun violence?

PERINO: Yeah, we know that Governor Haley’s husband is serving right now as well. And we thank him for that. Senator Scott, the national debt is nearly doubled in your time in office. The approval rate for Congress is at a mere 19%. If this were a business, you’d probably all be fired in Washington, but you’re here tonight looking for a promotion. In 2013, Governor Haley, new for the Senate, I’d like you to tell her why you should be promoted to CEO of the nation instead of her?

And of course, both Haley and Scott obliged Perino by tearing into each other for at least a couple of minutes of debate time over — I kid you not — drapes in her office as UN Ambassador. Because that truly matters to GOP primary voters.

Even with all of that, it didn’t truly descend into madness until Perino pulled this stunt at the end:

Fox News actually tried to get the candidates to play Survivor and write down who they would "vote off the island."

The candidates looked at Dana Perino like she was an insane person. pic.twitter.com/rL5YD4rrdM

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) September 28, 2023

That turned into a good moment for DeSantis, who rebuked Perino’s stunt as “disrespectful” and suggested that their time might be better spent “talk[ing] about the future of the country.” It’s hard to imagine a more juvenile gimmick than “show of hands,” but apparently Fox Business really wanted to promote the CBS show “Survivor” for some reason last night. And they prepared for it, too, with notepads and pens, assuming the candidates would simply play along.

Don’t get me wrong. I like and respect Perino, who’s far smarter and better than this most of the time. But this was atrocious, and if I’m around long enough to read her memoirs, I will be very curious to learn whether this was her idea or something that Fox Business and Univision imposed on the moderators.

This is easily the most disappointing performance I’ve yet seen by a host for a presidential debate. This should raise serious questions about Ronna McDaniel’s leadership at the RNC, especially because she made the debates a key issue in her re-election as RNC chair. She pledged to make sure that these forums would not become turkey shoots of Republican candidates by mainstream media. The first Fox News debate had its issues, but this was far worse, and every candidate on the stage last night should demand some answers and accountability for what McDaniel has wrought thus far.

Karen will have her thoughts on the debate itself and the candidates up next for our VIP members. That makes this a good time to sign up! Become a HotAir VIP member today and use promo code SAVEAMERICA to receive a 40% discount on your membership.