The Democratic National Committee has decided to exclude Fox News Channel from televising any of its candidate debates during the 2019-2020 cycle. So reports the Washington Post. The stated reason for this decision is a report by Jane Mayer in the New Yorker that Fox News is too cozy with President Trump.
Fox News at times has been too cozy with Trump. But I don’t think this is the real reason for the DNC’s decision. Rather, I believe the decision is an attempt (1) to shield Democratic contenders from tough questions while (2) inflicting a blow on a news organization the Democrats despise.
Let’s make the Democratic debates a friendly, family affair and screw Fox News in the process. That’s my takeaway from the decision.
Fox News is no more cozy with Trump than other news networks are with Democrats. Take CNN. As Molly Hemingway points out, it fed debate questions to Hillary Clinton before a primary debate. And CNN’s Candy Crowley came to President Obama’s aid by misrepresenting what Obama said regarding Benghazi, thereby undercutting Mitt Romney during the climax of the second debate in 2012.
Hope you’re enjoying the Trump presidency, Candy.
Moreover, the Fox News personnel Jane Mayer accuses of coziness with Trump (some of whom are no longer with the network) would not be involved in the debates. The DNC could make this a condition of Fox News’ participation, but it wouldn’t need to.
The anchors Fox would pick to participate in the debates — e.g., Bret Baier, Shannon Bream, and Chris Wallace are scrupulously fair, more so than their counterparts at other networks. But that’s the point. The DNC doesn’t want their candidates exposed to tough but fair journalists. It wants them exposed to friends.
Is there anything concrete Republicans can do in response to the DNC’s decision? President Trump tweeted:
Democrats just blocked @FoxNews from holding a debate. Good, then I think I’ll do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats in the General Election debates!
But Trump can’t determine unilaterally which networks will carry the general election debates. That has to be negotiated with the Democrats.
If Trump has a convincing lead next Fall and if he’s satisfied that blowing up debate negotiations won’t hurt him, then he can insist that “the fake news networks” not carry the debates. This would probably mean either no debates (which would be bad for the country) or just one debate (which would be bad for Trump if the one debate doesn’t go well for him — and first debates usually don’t go well for incumbent presidents).
Otherwise, Trump won’t be in a position to dictate to the Dems. He might try to exclude, say, CNN. I’m not sure he could make even that stick.
What about the GOP trying to exclude certain networks from its debates the next time there’s a seriously contested race for its nomination? Obviously, the Democrats would have no say in this. However, Republicans will want their debates to be widely viewed. Thus, they won’t want to exclude the entire left-liberal media.
Maybe they could pick off CNN, say. But the other left-liberal networks might show solidarity with CNN and refuse to carry GOP debates if CNN is excluded.
A seriously contested GOP race for president is unlikely to occur until 2023-24, though. By then, we may be in full “cold civil war” mode, and all current thinking on the subject of debates may be obsolete.
By excluding Fox News, the DNC has taken the country one small step towards that sad state of affairs.
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