“Easy To Criticize From The Cheap Seats” Chris Wallace Fires Back At Debate Critics

Chris Wallace, Host of Fox News Sunday and moderator of the first 2020 presidential debate spoke with Fox News Radio’s Guy Benson about what it was like to moderate the first showdown between the two major party candidates. Wallace rejected criticisms from conservatives that his debate questions were unevenly adversarial toward Trump, saying:

“I mean, one of the things that I went out of my way. I mean, I remember when, for instance, when I talked to President Trump about taxes, my very next question to Biden was, you know, your tax and spend policy is all about big government. One of the things you want to do is add four trillion dollars in taxes, you know, to individuals and to companies. Is that the right way to deal with an economy coming out of a recession? So, you know, I’d be perfectly happy to compare the sharpness of the questions I asked both of them. You know, one of the things I’d found in general is if you like Donald Trump, I could, you know, strangle Joe Biden. And it would be. Well, why did you strangle and why didn’t smother him or something? I mean, nothing is ever good enough. And I will say, conversely, for Democrats, when it comes to going after the president or other Republicans, nothing you say is going to be good enough.”

Wallace also fired back at critics at other news networks who criticized his debate moderating, saying

“I think it’s easy to criticize from the cheap seats. I’m always reluctant to do it. You know, having been fortunate enough and picked to do two presidential debates and I’ve done almost everything, I’ve interviewed the president and many presidents going back to Ronald Reagan. I’ve interviewed world leaders. I asked Vladimir Putin two years ago why so many people who oppose him have ended up dead. There is nothing that compares to being the sole moderator of a presidential debate. It is. It is exciting. It’s overwhelming. It’s daunting. You feel a tremendous sense of responsibility, not not in a career sense, in a civic sense that, you know, you’re having an opportunity here to help. In this case, it was, what, 70 plus million people compare to two candidates, one of whom in five weeks is going to be the next president of the United States. So to sit there from the cheap seats and say all that he did wasn’t tough enough and he couldn’t. First of all, I’m not sure there’s ever been a debate like this. Nobody can look at one where you know, where where one of the one of the participants has just ignored and, you know, ignored and walked over the rules the way President Trump did in this debate. You know, maybe somebody could have done better than I. But I think it’s awfully easy to say it from the sidelines.”

Listen To The Full Interview Below: