Chris Wallace, the Fox News anchor who moderated last Tuesday’s presidential debate, called the event a “terrible missed opportunity.”
“I’m just sad with the way last night turned out,” he said. “I never dreamt that it would go off the tracks the way it did.”
During Wallace’s first interview since the debate, he pointed out that he had been slow to recognize that the president would not follow the debate’s rules.
Wallace also said that he should have realized President Donald Trump would go after him, as a moderator, as he would go after presidential opponent and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
“I’ve read some of the reviews, I know people think, Well, gee, I didn’t jump in soon enough,” Wallace said. “I guess I didn’t realize — and there was no way you could, hindsight being 20/20 — that this was going to be the president’s strategy, not just for the beginning of the debate but the entire debate.”
When Trump approached Biden on stage Tuesday night, “I thought this was great — this is a debate!”
Wallace eventually realized that Trump would not back off attacking Biden. “If I didn’t try to seize control of the debate — which I don’t know that I ever really did — then it was going to just go completely off the tracks,” Wallace said. “The country would be better served if we allowed both people to speak with fewer interruptions.”
Wallace was then asked if he thought that Trump derailed the debate, “Well, he certainly didn’t help.”
Wallace was asked, “Care to elaborate?”
“No,” Wallace said.
“To quote the president, ‘It is what it is.'”
