However, the Trump foreign-policy debacle has led Hewitt to re-think his approach. He said that in his questions at the Reagan library on Wednesday he now planned to “state who the person is – don’t make anyone guess”.

Hewitt is planning to avoid long, involved questions for Trump and anybody else. “In the first debate, the moderators spoke for 34 minutes – that’s too much time,” he told the Guardian. “My ideal is nobody’s talking about me on Thursday.”

“I don’t want to tip my hand with any questions that … they can read and then get ready for,” he said. “But what I have made a habit of doing with everyone is asking: what will you do about Iran? What are you going to do about Libya, which is becoming as bad as Syria? What I want to do is ask questions that will allow the candidates to talk to each other.”

CNN has made an editorial decision, he said, to not “step on” actual debate itself, with which Hewitt agrees. “It’s not about us,” he said.