Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      A Chaotic Republican Debate: ‘Turn Off the Mic!’

      by

      More from our inbox:Members of Congress, Still Paid in a ShutdownTwo Views of JusticeColumbia’s Contributions to New York CityHigh-Quality TV Shows‘I Love Dogs,’ but Biden’s Must GoThe candidates mostly ignored former President Donald J. Trump’s overwhelming lead during the debate last night.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “5 Takeaways From Another Trump-Free Republican Debate” (nytimes.com, Sept. 28):Turn off the mic!Seven people onstage at the same time. Just enough time for the evening’s bloviators to spew out their prefabricated talking points. Not enough time for discussions of substance.And then there’s something called rules. In lieu of decorum, our debates have devolved into two hours of rudeness, interruption and incivility. Year after year, moderators exhibit little control or are completely ignored. Candidates with the least to say won’t shut up, and those with a cogent thought don’t have time to express it.Suggestion: With a clearly displayed clock, give each candidate a prescribed amount of time for talk and rebuttal. If another candidate interrupts, turn off his or her mike. For further interruptions, deduct minutes from that candidate’s talking time.Would candidates be receptive to such an idea? If not, why?Karl AbbottNew YorkTo the Editor:The smartest man on the G.O.P. debate stage was Donald Trump. He was omnipresent without the necessity of actual presence.Why would he debate? He has the nomination wrapped up. The taunts (“Donald Trump is missing in action” — Ron DeSantis; “Voters deserve to hear him defend his record”— The Wall Street Journal) are futile rhetoric. Mr. Trump will not be provoked. He can continue to go about his business unscathed while watching his frenzied rivals with minuscule ratings continue to flail.Meanwhile, Mr. Trump gets to skate into the nomination on his terms thanks to a Republican Party that can’t get enough of him. As Mr. Trump himself used to tweet, “Sad.”William GoldmanLos AngelesTo the Editor:I’m a very proud, lifelong Democrat. But I like to watch the G.O.P. debate because I enjoy seeing the party implode and eat its own. But I stopped after 45 minutes.It was simply a bunch of lies, misleading statements and prepared applause lines. Not one of them has any idea how to solve America’s problems, nor do they even offer a sensible plan, or in many cases any plan, to do so.The party will simply anoint the twice-impeached, criminally indicted former POTUS. This is what the party wants, and, in short, nothing and no one will stop this from happening. We are all watching, in slow motion, the game play out before the final out.Ben MilanoLindenhurst, N.Y.Members of Congress, Still Paid in a Shutdown Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesTo the Editor:How is it that if there is a government shutdown, others suffer and go hungry but members of Congress still get paid? That is obviously wrong and needs to change.Joan PachnerHartsdale, N.Y.Two Views of Justice Dave Sanders for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “More Democrats Calling on Menendez to Resign” (front page, Sept. 27):Senator Robert Menendez is indicted by the Justice Department. Democratic lawmakers across the country call for him to resign.Donald Trump is indicted by the Justice Department. Republican lawmakers across the country call for investigations into the weaponization of the Justice Department.Can there be a clearer indication of which group has a higher regard for ethics, morality and the rule of law?Barry LuriePhiladelphiaColumbia’s Contributions to New York CityColumbia’s science center was built on a new campus in Harlem. As the university expanded its footprint in the city, the number of New Yorkers enrolling declined.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Columbia and N.Y.U. Expand, but Pay Little Tax” (front page, Sept. 27):Columbia is honored to call New York home, and we are committed to being a responsible and engaged citizen of this city. While we don’t profess to be perfect, we take pride in the estimated $14.6 billion we contribute in annual economic impact to our community, according to the most recent study by New York’s Commission on Independent Colleges & Universities.But whittling down the university’s local contributions to dollars spent ignores the broad array of commitments, large and small, that we have made to this city as one of its oldest and proudest institutional residents.I could point to the critical role played by the university and our health care providers throughout the pandemic, including providing space and logistical support to house health care workers, or to researchers at our Climate School, who are contributing their time and resources to studying harmful algae blooms in city parks.Most recently, our faculty and students have volunteered to help asylum seekers who are filing applications for the authorization to work.Columbia is expanding our commitments to the city. That includes doing more to recruit, admit and support New York City’s public school students.We know this is an all-hands-on-deck moment for New York City, and we are dedicated to contributing in every way we can to assure a bright future for it.Gerald M. RosbergNew YorkThe writer is senior executive vice president of Columbia University.High-Quality TV Shows Matteo Giuseppe PaniTo the Editor:Re “The Era of Prestige TV Is Ending. We’re Going to Miss It When It’s Gone,” by Roy Price (Opinion guest essay, nytimes.com, Sept. 21):Before Netflix, before Amazon, before HBO, before any of the streamers, was “prestige” content from public broadcasting worldwide. And before that was “Playhouse 90” and other prestige content from the networks of television’s early years.Good content is not just produced by big distributors; look at the range of truly interesting shows that media creators are developing on easily accessible platforms that don’t demand big budgets and fancy pedigrees.Open your eyes beyond your narrow West Coast view, Mr. Price. There’s a lot to like out there.Alice CahnRockland, MaineThe writer is a former head of children’s programming for PBS and vice president at Cartoon Network.‘I Love Dogs,’ but Biden’s Must GoCommander, a 2-year-old German shepherd, has bitten several members of the Secret Service, including biting one officer on the arm and thigh badly enough that the officer was sent to the hospital.Carolyn Kaster/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “Once Again, a Biden Dog Gives a Bite to an Agent” (news article, Sept. 27):I love dogs more than I love most humans. That said, I feel it’s long past time that Commander, President Biden’s German shepherd, is permanently exiled from the White House to a comfortable, safe environment, such as a farm, where he has fewer opportunities to bite people.I doubt that Mr. Biden wants this outcome, but a dog with his record of biting folks should have been sent away long ago.Richard B. EllenbergerNormandy Park, Wash. More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      When Is the Next Republican Debate? Time, Channel and How to Watch

      by

      The debate, hosted by Fox Business Network, will be held from 9 to 11 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday night at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.The second debate of the Republican presidential primary is on Wednesday, Sept. 27, from 9 to 11 p.m. Eastern time.The debate, sanctioned by the Republican National Committee and hosted by Fox Business Network, will take place at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif.Where can I watch it?There are several ways to watch.Fox Business Network will broadcast the debate. Coverage beforehand will start at 6 p.m. Eastern, and post-debate coverage will run through 1 a.m., at which point a rerun of the debate will be shown.The debate will be broadcast simultaneously on Fox News, with programming starting at 8:30 p.m. Fox Nation, the channel’s streaming network, will carry it as well.Univision will show the debate in Spanish and livestream it at UnivisionNoticias.com. Its streaming platform, ViX, will also have live coverage.The streaming platform Rumble will also show the debate.Which candidates will be onstage?Seven candidates have qualified for the debate:Gov. Doug Burgum of North DakotaFormer Gov. Chris Christie of New JerseyGov. Ron DeSantis of FloridaNikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former United Nations ambassadorFormer Vice President Mike PenceThe entrepreneur Vivek RamaswamySenator Tim Scott of South CarolinaFor these candidates, time is running short to gain on the front-runner in the race, former President Donald J. Trump. They will need to seize on moments like debates, with national audiences, if they hope to be competitive in the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Mr. Trump’s closest rival, Mr. DeSantis, has slipped in polling lately, and the other candidates have largely been stuck in single digits in national surveys.This debate will have one fewer participant than the first debate, which drew nearly 13 million viewers and was also the most-watched cable telecast of the year outside of sports. Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas failed to meet the increased requirements for the second debate, which demanded 50,000 individual donors (up from 40,000) and 3 percent in a minimum of two national polls accepted by the R.N.C. (up from 1 percent), or in one national poll plus two polls from early-voting states.No one who missed the first debate qualified for the second.Where the Republican Presidential Candidates Stand on the IssuesAs the Republican presidential candidates campaign under the shadow of a front-runner facing dozens of felony charges, The New York Times examined their stances on 11 key issues.Who is moderating the debate?Two Fox News anchors — Dana Perino and Stuart Varney — will moderate alongside Ilia Calderón of Univision.What about Trump?Just like last time, he will skip the debate. He easily met the donor and polling thresholds, but he has refused to sign a required pledge to support the Republican nominee no matter who it is.Instead, he will deliver a prime-time speech to current and former union members in Detroit, inserting himself into the dispute between automakers and the striking United Automobile Workers union. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘You want to think America is better’: can the supreme court be saved?

      by

      When Dawn Porter studied law at Georgetown University in Washington, she would pass the US supreme court every day. “You walk by the marble columns, the frontage which has inspirational words, and you believe that,” she recalls. “You think because of this court Black people integrated schools, because of this court women have the right to choose, because of this court, because of this court, because of this court.”Its profound role in American life is chronicled in Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court, Porter’s four-part documentary series that traces the people, decisions and confirmation battles that have helped the court’s relationship with politics turn from a respectful dance into a toxic marriage.Porter, 57, an Emmy award winner who maintains her bar licence, remembers first year common law classes when she studied the court’s landmark decisions. “Like most lawyers I have a great admiration for not only what the court can do but its role in shaping American opinion as well as American society,” she says via Zoom from New York, a poster for her film John Lewis: Good Trouble behind her.“If there’s a criticism of the court in this series, it comes from a place of longing, a place of saying we can’t afford for this court to lose the respect of the American people. There’s going to be decisions over time that people disagree with. That’s not unusual. What’s unusual is how cases are getting to the court, how they’re ignoring precedent and the procedures by which the decisions are getting made. That’s where I would love people to focus.”Deadlocked offers a visual montage of the court winding back in time: women and people of colour gradually disappear in favour of an all-white, all-male bench. They include Chief Justice Earl Warren, who heralded an era of progressive legal decisions such as Brown v Board of Education, a unanimous 1954 ruling that desegregated public schools.Porter says of the paradox: “One of the things we were thinking is, isn’t it ironic that this all-male, all-white court is responsible for Brown v Board and for Roe v Wade [which enshrined the right to abortion] and you have the right to an attorney, which is Gideon v Wainwright, and you have the right to have your rights read to you. Yet when we have the most diverse court we’ve ever had, we’re seeing a rollback of some of these civil rights.”In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson nominated the civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall to be the first Black man to serve on the court. A group of southern senators, almost all Democrats, sought to exploit riots in the major cities and fears about crime to try to derail his nomination. Marshall endured five days of questioning spanning three weeks and was finally confirmed by the Senate in a 69-11 vote.There have only been two African American justices since: conservative Clarence Thomas and liberal Ketanji Brown Jackson. The first woman to sit on the court was Sandra Day O’Connor, a moderate conservative appointed by the Republican president Ronald Reagan.“It takes a century of supreme court jurisprudence before we get a woman on the court. There’s an irony there that we have the current composition of the court and yet we have probably one of the most least hospitable courts to individual rights.”The court’s relationship with public opinion has been complex, leading at some times, following at others. In 2015, it ruled that same-sex couples had the right to marry. The 5-4 decision removed same-sex marriage bans in 14 states – an acknowledgment of shifting attitudes and the rise of the LGBTQ+ rights movement.Porter observes: “The court doesn’t have an army. It doesn’t even have PR or a media representative. The supreme court can’t change public opinion but what the court can do is either set an aspirational goal or it can reflect where the country is. For the gay marriage decision, that’s where the country was. The country was supportive of same-sex marriage and the court ratifies that public opinion and makes it law.”Opinion polls show that a majority of Americans have also consistently supported reproductive rights. In Roe v Wade in 1973, the court voted 7-2 that the constitution protects individual privacy, including the right to abortion. Porter observes: “It’s not that controversial a decision by that time. More than half the states had reproductive rights access so it was only going to affect some of the states.”At the time, Christian evangelicals were not opposed to abortion rights. “Evangelicals historically were pro-choice. This is where politics comes in and is on this collision course with the judiciary. Evangelical leaders like Jerry Falwell realised, oh, wait, abortion is a wedge issue and there are all these Catholic voters. So they come together.“What the evangelicals want is tax exemption for religious schools. The Catholics don’t want abortion and together they’re a powerful voting bloc. They not only say we’re going to try and get the supreme court to change but we’re going to elect a president who is going to help us.”These religious groups duly turned against the Democratic president Jimmy Carter, an evangelical Sunday school teacher, in favour of the divorced former Hollywood actor Reagan. Porter continues: “What you see is kind of politics at work. How can we get power? How can we get what we want? How can we form alliances?“That alliance is very powerful because Reagan ends up having so many appointments to the court and you see the rightward shift of the court. These kinds of monumental changes don’t happen quickly but building blocks are constructed in these earlier years, like in the 80s, and they’ve continued to this day.”The court’s role as a political actor was never more stark than in 2000, when its ruling in Bush v Gore terminated the recount process in Florida in the presidential election, effectively handing the White House to George W Bush. Porter notes: “It’s 5-4 to step in and stop the voting to determine who would be the next president of the United States. Sandra Day O’Connor later said she regretted voting with the majority.“Also, interestingly, Justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are all working with the Republicans on the side of soon-to-be President Bush. Is that illegal? No. Is it impermissible? No. Is it unethical? No. Is it interesting? Yes!” Porter says with a laugh.But the ever-growing politicisation of the court became turbocharged – perhaps irreversibly – by the death of the conservative justice Antonin Scalia in 2016. Mitch McConnell, then Republican majority leader in the Senate, committed a professional foul by refusing to act on President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to replace him, insisting that the seat remain vacant in an election year.Step forward Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president who released a list of 11 potential supreme court nominees based on advice from conservative groups such as the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation. It was an unprecedented political masterstroke that comforted religious conservatives troubled by his unholy antics and past support for abortion rights.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMcConnell is seen in Deadlocked asserting that “the single biggest issue that brought nine out of 10 Republican voters home to Donald Trump … was the supreme court”. This clip is from an address he made in 2019 to the Federalist Society, which has played a critical role in tilting the court to the right.The group was founded in 1982 under the mentorship of Justice Antonin Scalia to challenge what conservatives perceived as liberal dominance of courts and law schools. Among its most prominent members was Leonard Leo, who oversaw the rise in its influence at the expense of the more liberal American Bar Association.Porter says: “Leonard Leo is one of the most fascinating and yet not widely known political actors in our contemporary history. The Federalist Society realises: we can have influence in grooming judges and who’s getting appointed to the lower courts. Leonard Leo takes that on steroids and eventually becomes the person who former president Trump looks to create his list of potential supreme court nominees.“In recent years Leo has secured a multibillion-dollar war chest in order to continue to groom and populate the lower courts with very conservative ideologues. Amy Coney Barrett is a product of that. Kavanaugh is a product of that. All the greatest hits are with Federalist Society influence.”Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator, has called it “the scheme”: a decades-long plot by rightwing donor interests to capture the supreme court and use it to accomplish goals that they cannot achieve through elected officials. The Federalist Society is a receptacle for “dark money” – millions of dollars in anonymous hidden spending.Porter adds: “The problem with private entities like the Federalist Society having so much influence and power is that there’s no insight into the source of their funds. We certainly do know that it’s not a coincidence that some of the interests of some of the most conservative folks seem to be being served by these appointments.”Last year the rightwing forces achieved their greatest victory with a decision that once seemed unthinkable: the overturning of Roe v Wade after nearly half a century. Most Republican-led states moved to restrict abortion with 14 banning the procedure in most cases at any point in pregnancy. About 25 million women of childbearing age now live in states where the law makes abortions harder to get than they were before the ruling.Porter had wanted to believe the court she admired as a student was a bulwark in defence of individual liberties. “Every pundit, every organisation, said Roe is going to be overturned and yet it was still hard to believe that 50 years later, when so many people rely on that decision, that it actually could be overturned.“I will say it really did personally impact my feeling about the court. Reading the decision, there’s ignoring of history. It’s not a well-written opinion, it’s not coherent, and that’s really hard. We all need to believe in things and we all need to believe that these are the smartest people and that they’re able to put aside their personal beliefs and that didn’t seem to be the case.“It was more than disappointing. It’s somewhat comforting that we have such a strong reaction to it but I see the cases of the women who have been so harmed by this decision. There are people have been forced to carry pregnancies to term that were not viable, people who just stay pregnant who didn’t want to be pregnant. You want to think America is better than that.”As the final episode of Deadlocked acknowledges, the court faces a crisis of legitimacy. A series of extremist rulings out of whack with public opinion have come at the same time as ethics scandals involving the rightwing justices Thomas and Samuel Alito. The share of Americans with a favourable opinion of the court has declined to its lowest point in public opinion surveys since 1987: 44% favourable versus 54% unfavourable, according to the Pew Research Center.Porter adds: “Every single person we spoke to for this series regardless of their political background – and we have Scalia’s former clerk, who wrote the decision broadening access to guns; we have Ted Olson, who argued Bush v Gore for President Bush; we have Don Ayer, who was a Reagan justice department official – is concerned about the reputation of the court and what the future holds if the court continues to chart its own path and not realise the delicate balance of our tripartite system of government.“What if the court sides with a Trump who refuses to accept the results of the election next year? That’s what we’re talking about and a lot of the people who did the insurrection are still out there; we didn’t arrest them all. We’re in uncharted waters. It’s not a game and I don’t think anyone wants to actually put this to the test of: will our democracy survive?”
      Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court premieres on Showtime on 22 September with a UK date to be announced More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Struggling to Understand TV Dialogue? Join the Club.

      by

      More from our inbox:Airbrushing Older ModelsHaley’s Raised HandSea Life in CaptivityDerek AbellaTo the Editor: Re “Huh? What? There Are Ways to Improve the Sound on Your TV?” (Business, Aug. 18):As an American expat, I got a good chuckle out of Brian X. Chen’s article about poor dialogue sound quality in streaming. The premise, that using subtitles is a terrible inconvenience that diminishes one’s enjoyment of video entertainment, is one of those peculiarly American complaints that seem bizarre to many people overseas.In Chinese-speaking areas and other parts of East Asia, the wide variety of languages, accents and usages can make it tough to comprehend dialogue regardless of sound quality, so video nearly always comes with subtitles, whether it’s on TV, in a movie theater or online. Nobody here seems to mind.Indeed, the people in Malaysia who build the Sonos equipment that Mr. Chen praised must be thrilled that Americans will spend $900 on soundbars to avoid those irritating subtitles.Michael P. ClarkeTaoyuan City, TaiwanTo the Editor:We do not have to bring speakers to a movie theater to watch a movie and we should not have to put speakers on our TV sets to enjoy a television show. Modern television sets should come with high-resolution pictures and high-quality, audible sound. The quality of the sound is as important as the quality of the picture. We should not have to buy soundbars.Bill ChastainNew YorkTo the Editor:I’ve used closed captioning for a while now, not only because the sound quality on streaming services is far from as good as it should be but also because programs produced in England — many of the shows on PBS, which I like — use a lot of slang and hard-to-understand dialects.But a major problem is that some of the streaming services, like Netflix, have closed captions that are far from helpful. They come on well before or well after the spoken words, and too often they flash on so fast that it is impossible to read the entire line of dialogue.Michael SpielmanWellfleet, Mass.To the Editor:Brian X. Chen suggests that we can hear the dialogue in movies and television shows better by installing new equipment. Along with the attempts at improvements made by directors and sound mixers, producers might insist upon better diction from the actors.I’ve noticed this slurring and breathy quality in stage performers, too. Perhaps Broadway shows need closed captioning?Lawrence RaikenQueensAirbrushing Older ModelsRafael Pavarotti/VogueTo the Editor: Re “Do Supermodels Age, or Get Airbrushed Instead?” (Sunday Styles, Aug. 20):The timing couldn’t be more prescient. Just as Greta Gerwig’s irreverent blockbuster “Barbie” is sweeping theaters around the world, Vogue has released its iconic September issue featuring the likes of America’s supermodels — Linda Evangelista, 58, Cindy Crawford, 57, Christy Turlington, 54, and Naomi Campbell, 53 — on its cover.As Vanessa Friedman aptly remarks, they are “paragons of mature beauty whose years have seemingly been smoothed from their faces,” which “look so retouched that they seem more like A.I.-generated bots than actual people.” A Vogue spokeswoman claimed there was only “minimal retouching.” We know better.Although we can surely applaud Vogue’s decision to feature 50-something models on its cover, “retouching” them is perpetuating a big lie. It is, in effect, “Barbiefying” them. Barbie was the icon that fed upon young girls’ feelings of inadequacy. Now older women can gaze at Vogue’s cover and feel inadequate too. Thank you, Vogue.If Vogue, “the fashion Bible,” had elected not to retouch these mature beauties, it would have been a truly groundbreaking event. Certainly a missed opportunity.Thank you, Vanessa Friedman, for speaking truth to Vogue. As Ms. Gerwig’s Barbie comes to realize, “It’s time to change the Constitution.”Elizabeth LangerNew YorkThe writer is a co-founder of the Women’s Rights Law Reporter, the first U.S. journal devoted to women and the law.To the Editor:I laughed this morning reading Vanessa Friedman’s column at the silliness of an article criticizing the airbrushing of aging models. The fashion industry runs on unrealistic representations of beauty. Why should those standards be different for older models?I’ve attended fashion shoots where young models had terrible acne that was ultimately airbrushed out. It seems that, no matter how young or beautiful a model is, there’s almost always flattering lighting and image manipulation. The industry runs on fantasy.So, whether or not older models have their wrinkles airbrushed seems irrelevant if everything is unrealistic. This is commerce. They aren’t profiling women curing cancer. At least now they’re democratizing fashion to allow older women to put their best selves forward, too.I hope they can continue to do that without being criticized for tricks of the trade. I think focusing on airbrushing undermines how great it is that Vogue is keeping women over 50 relevant.Jenifer VogtDobbs Ferry, N.Y.Haley’s Raised HandJoe Buglewicz for The New York TimesTo the Editor: Re “Nikki Haley Is the Best Alternative to Trump,” by David Brooks (column, Aug. 25):Wednesday night’s Republican debate persuaded Mr. Brooks that Nikki Haley is the best alternative to Donald Trump. Yet while Mr. Brooks makes a convincing case that Ms. Haley is a preferable candidate to Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis and especially Vivek Ramaswamy, he fails to address the fact that Ms. Haley, along with every other candidate on the stage except Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, raised her hand when asked if she would support Mr. Trump if he is convicted of one or more felonies and is the Republican nominee.I would ask Mr. Brooks how Ms. Haley’s raised hand shows that she is “one of the few candidates who understands that to run against Trump you have to run against Trump”? And should that not, by itself, render her unfit to become the next president of the United States?David A. BarryCambridge, Mass.Sea Life in CaptivityLolita during a performance at the Miami Seaquarium in 1995. She has been in captivity since 1970.Nuri Vallbona/Miami Herald, via Associated PressTo the Editor: Re “Lolita the Orca, Mainstay of Miami Seaquarium for 50 Years, Dies,” by Jesus Jiménez (news article, nytimes.com, Aug. 18):I know I am not alone in grieving the tragedy of the kidnapping of this orca, also known as Tokitae, her decades spent in captivity, and her untimely death just when freedom and the possibility of being reunited with her family in the Salish Sea were close enough to touch. Her sorrowful life story hurts all the more because our human collective doesn’t seem to have learned a thing from it.Orcas remain endangered and continue to struggle to hear each other and catch dwindling salmon in polluted waters that are choking with boat noise from unceasing human commercial and recreational activity. Worse, the captive industry carries on, including in Seattle, which is intent upon building a shiny new shark tank to imprison even more animals.My hope is that Tokitae’s death will galvanize support against the captivity industry locally and beyond, and serve as a beacon of hope for other beings languishing in tanks simply so that they can be ogled by humans. Let’s honor Tokitae and her bereaved family by ensuring that nobody else has to suffer similarly.Stephanie C. BellSeaTac, Wash. More

    • 100 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      First Republican Presidential Debate Draws 12.8 Million Viewers

      by

      The figure exceeded the expectations of some television executives, who believed that Mr. Trump’s absence would lead to far fewer viewers.The first Republican debate on Wednesday night drew an audience of 12.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen, indicating robust interest despite the absence of former President Donald J. Trump, the front-runner in the race.The viewership figure, which includes totals from both Fox News (11.1 million viewers) and the Fox Business Network (1.7 million), was significantly higher than anything else on television on Wednesday night, and outperformed the broadcast network totals combined. It was also the most-watched cable telecast of the year outside of sports, surpassing an episode of Paramount’s “Yellowstone,” which had 8.2 million viewers, according to Nielsen.The audience total, however, is a far cry from the record 24 million viewers who tuned in to Fox News for the opening Republican debate in the 2016 election cycle, which featured Mr. Trump on a debate stage for the first time. Nor did it reach the 18.1 million who watched one of the early Democratic debates in June 2019.But the figure still exceeded expectations of some television executives, who had believed that the numbers could be low given Mr. Trump’s absence as well as cable television’s reduced presence in American homes compared with just a few years ago.Mr. Trump, leading by a wide margin in the polls and engaged in a running feud with Fox, skipped the debate. Instead, he appeared for an interview with Tucker Carlson — the former prime-time star, who was ousted by Fox News this year — on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. The interview was posted shortly before the debate began on Wednesday evening.Mr. Trump declared his X interview a “blockbuster” on Thursday morning. It is not clear, however, how many people watched the interview. Anytime users on X scroll past a post with the video in their feed, it counts as a “view” — one of the few metrics the social network makes public — whether they watched the video or not. Nielsen’s television ratings more rigorously track the number of people who watched a program.The Fox News debate featured eight candidates, who often sparred aggressively with one another. They were Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum.The Fox News debate moderators, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, spent about 10 minutes of questions on Mr. Trump and his four criminal indictments, with Mr. Baier saying he had to acknowledge the “elephant not in the room.”The next Republican debate will be on Sept. 27 on Fox Business. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Who Are Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the Debate Moderators?

      by

      The role of debate moderator carries prestige, but it also brings exacting demands and inherent risks: personal attacks by candidates, grievances about perceived biases and, for the two moderators of Wednesday’s Republican primary debate, a tempestuous cable news network’s reputation.Enter Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, the Fox News Channel mainstays who drew that assignment and will pose questions to the eight G.O.P. presidential candidates squaring off for the first time, absent former President Donald J. Trump.The party’s front-runner, Mr. Trump will bypass the debate in favor of an online interview with Tucker Carlson, who was fired from Fox News in April.But that doesn’t mean the debate’s moderators will be under any less of a microscope.Here’s a closer look at who they are:Bret BaierHe is the chief political anchor for Fox News and the host of “Special Report With Bret Baier” at 6 p.m. on weeknights. Mr. Baier, 53, joined the network in 1998, two years after the network debuted, according to his biography.Mr. Baier, like Ms. MacCallum, is no stranger to the debate spotlight.In 2016, he moderated three G.O.P. primary debates for Fox, alongside Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace, who have since left the network. He was present when Ms. Kelly grilled Mr. Trump about his treatment of women during a 2015 debate, an exchange that drew Mr. Trump’s ire and led him to boycott the network’s next debate nearly six months later.During the 2012 presidential race, Mr. Baier moderated five Republican primary debates.At a network dominated by conservative commentators like Sean Hannity and the departed Mr. Carlson and Bill O’Reilly, Mr. Baier has generally avoided controversy — but not entirely.After Fox News called Arizona for Joseph R. Biden Jr. on election night in 2020, becoming the first major news network to do so and enraging Mr. Trump and his supporters, Mr. Baier suggested in an email to network executives the next morning that the outlet should reverse its projection.“It’s hurting us,” he wrote in the email, which was obtained by The New York Times.Mr. Baier was also part of a witness list in the defamation lawsuit that Dominion Voting Systems brought against Fox News over the network’s role in spreading disinformation about the company’s voting equipment. Fox settled the case for $787.5 million before it went to trial.Martha MacCallumShe is the anchor and executive editor of “The Story With Martha MacCallum” at 3 p.m. on weekdays. Ms. MacCallum, 59, joined the network in 2004, according to her biography.During the 2016 election, Ms. MacCallum moderated a Fox News forum for the bottom seven Republican presidential contenders who had not qualified for the party’s first debate in August 2015. She reprised that role in January 2016, just days before the Iowa caucuses.She and Mr. Baier also moderated a series of town halls with individual Democratic candidates during the 2020 election, including one that featured Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.Before joining Fox, she worked for NBC and CNBC.When Fox projected Mr. Biden’s victory over Mr. Trump in Arizona, effectively indicating that Mr. Biden had clinched the presidency, Ms. MacCallum was similarly drawn into the maelstrom at the network.During a Zoom meeting with network executives and Mr. Baier, she suggested it was not enough to call states based on numerical calculations — the standard by which networks have made such determinations for generations — but that viewers’ reactions should be considered.“In a Trump environment,” Ms. MacCallum said, according to a review of the phone call by The Times, “the game is just very, very different.” More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Inside Trump’s Decision to Skip the G.O.P. Debate

      by

      Fox News leaned on the former president privately and publicly to join the debate. But all the while he was proceeding with a plan for his own counterprogramming.On a cool August night on the crowded patio of his private club in New Jersey, former President Donald J. Trump held up his phone to his dinner companions.The Republican front-runner was having dinner with a Fox News contributor and columnist, Charlie Hurt, when a call came in from another member of the Fox team. The man on the other end of the line, Mr. Trump was delighted to show his guests, was Bret Baier, one of the two moderators of the first Republican debate on Wednesday, according to two people with knowledge of the call.It was Mr. Trump’s second Fox dinner that week. The night before, he had hosted the Fox News president, Jay Wallace, and the network’s chief executive, Suzanne Scott, who had gone to Bedminster, N.J., hoping to persuade Mr. Trump to attend the debate. Mr. Baier was calling to get a feel for the former president’s latest thinking.For months, Fox had been working Mr. Trump privately and publicly. He was keeping them guessing, in his patented petulant way. But even as he behaved as if he was listening to entreaties, Mr. Trump was proceeding with a plan for his own counterprogramming to the debate.The former president has told aides that he has made up his mind not to participate in the debate and has decided to post an online interview with Tucker Carlson that night instead, according to people briefed on the matter.Upstaging Fox’s biggest event of the year would be provocation enough. But an interview with Mr. Carlson — who was Fox’s top-rated host and is at war with the network, which is still paying out his contract — amounts to a slap in the network’s face by Mr. Trump. The decision is a potential source of aggravation for the Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, who privately urged him to attend, including in her own visit to Bedminster last month.But Mr. Trump’s primary motive in skipping the debate is not personal animosity toward Ms. McDaniel but a crass political calculation: He doesn’t want to risk his giant lead in a Republican race that some close to him believe he must win to stay out of prison.But that’s not the only reason.‘They Purposely Show the Absolutely Worst Pictures of Me’Mr. Trump’s relationship with Fox — a long-running saga that has been both lucrative and, more recently, extremely costly for the network — is the other issue that looms large in his thinking about the debate, according to people familiar with the president’s conversations. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak for the campaign.His professed hatred of Fox — and the animus he often privately expresses about the chairman of Fox Corporation, Rupert Murdoch — is mixed with his recognition of Mr. Murdoch’s power and a grudging acknowledgment that the network can still affect his image with Republican voters.“Why doesn’t Fox and Friends show all of the Polls where I am beating Biden, by a lot,” Mr. Trump posted on his website, Truth Social, on Thursday morning, venting about the network’s morning show. He added: “Also, they purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not.”Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier are co-hosts of the first Republican primary debate, which will be held Wednesday evening in Milwaukee.Leah Millis/ReutersThe Fox team working on the debate has prepared two sets of plans for Wednesday night: One for if Mr. Trump shows up and another for if he doesn’t. Mr. Baier has spoken to Mr. Trump at least four times over the phone to make his case. Mr. Trump has explained his reluctance, but always left the door open to a late change of plans, according to the people familiar with the calls.Fox executives expect the audience for Wednesday’s debate to be lower than the record 25 million who watched the first Republican debate in August 2015, even if Mr. Trump shows up, though his presence would almost certainly boost interest.“President Trump is ratings gold, and everyone recognizes that,” said Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign’s communications director.Mr. Trump has tried to use his leverage to get friendlier coverage. During his dinner with the two Fox executives, Mr. Wallace and Ms. Scott, Mr. Trump needled them about the network’s coverage of him. He told them he was skeptical that Mr. Murdoch — whom Mr. Trump has known for decades — was not dictating the daytime political coverage that the former president found egregious.Mr. Trump, who has often complained about what he contends is Fox’s glowing coverage of Gov. Ron DeSantis, dismissed a recent interview Mr. Baier conducted with Mr. DeSantis as “soft.” Mr. Trump also told the Fox executives he couldn’t believe they had fired Mr. Carlson.Mr. Baier, who helped moderate Mr. Trump’s first-ever political debate in August 2015 and has golfed with him, has a complicated relationship with the former president.Mr. Baier, who will co-host Wednesday’s debate with Martha MacCallum, interviewed Mr. Trump in June, an encounter Mr. Trump first called “fair” but then complained was “unfriendly.” That change of heart came after news coverage pointed out the harm Mr. Trump may have caused himself legally with his answers about matters related to one of the federal cases against him.A Fox News spokeswoman, Irena Briganti, said the network “looks forward to hosting the first debate of the Republican presidential primary season offering viewers an unmatched opportunity to learn more about the candidates’ positions on a variety of issues which is essential to the electoral process.”‘Maybe I Should Just Go’Mr. Trump’s top advisers oppose his participation in the debate to avoid giving his rivals a chance to elevate themselves at his expense and close the wide gap between them in the polls.But until earlier this past week, Mr. Trump was still privately toying with the idea of attending. In one conversation, Mr. Trump had said, “Maybe I should just go,” according to a person with knowledge of the call.The former president has been quizzing confidants lately about whether he should debate. He has fixated on former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who is expected to be his harshest critic on the stage. And he has expressed a particularly intense disdain for the low-polling former governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, suggesting privately that it would be almost insulting to share a stage with him, according to a person who spoke to Mr. Trump.Senior members of Mr. Trump’s team — Chris LaCivita, Jason Miller and Mr. Cheung — all plan to attend the debate. The Trump campaign has arranged for prominent surrogates, including members of Congress, to visit the “spin room” after the debate to make Mr. Trump’s case.But as of Friday, Mr. Trump appeared to have lost interest in attending the debate, according to people with knowledge of his thinking. And he is now planning to attempt to upstage the event by participating in the interview with Mr. Carlson, though the exact timing and online platform remain unclear.Trump’s Presence, Despite His AbsenceThe Fox News team is considering integrating video of Mr. Trump into their questioning on debate night. Jordan Gale for The New York TimesMr. Baier and Ms. MacCallum plan to make Mr. Trump a major figure in the two-hour program — whether he shows up or not.The Fox team has prepared questions to ask Trump rivals about his most recent criminal indictment, which was handed down by a grand jury in Georgia. They are also considering integrating video of Mr. Trump into their questioning, according to people familiar with the planning.The questions will begin immediately. Candidates will not be allowed to make opening statements. They will, however, be allotted 45-second closing statements. Each answer will be limited to one minute, with a sound like a hotel front desk’s bell alerting candidates that their time has expired. (Fox has retired the doorbell-like chime it used in the last debates after it sent some dogs into barking fits.)Unlike when Mr. Trump skipped a Fox debate in Iowa in January 2016, just before the caucuses there, Fox has had more time to prepare for Mr. Trump’s absence.This year, the Republican National Committee updated its rules to require candidates to sign a pledge no later than 48 hours before the debate, including commitments to support the party’s nominee regardless of who it is and to not participate in any future debates not sanctioned by the R.N.C.Mr. Trump has not signed the pledge. R.N.C. officials have told people that no candidate, including Mr. Trump, will be allowed onstage without signing it. But Mr. Trump is far from principled on the matter. He has already signed a similar pledge vowing to “generally believe in” and “intend to support the nominees and platform” of the G.O.P. in 2024 in order to qualify for the South Carolina primary ballot, according to a party official in the state.In 2016, Fox did not know until the last minute possible that he was not going to show up. And even once the debate started, the hosts and producers were bracing for the possibility that he might arrive in the middle of the broadcast and demand to be allowed on the stage. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      What Trump’s Debate Stunt Says to Republican Voters

      by

      It’s hard to think of a more childishly on-brand stunt than Donald Trump’s effort to sabotage the first Republican debate of the 2024 presidential race.The MAGA king refusing to put on his big-boy pants and share the stage with his opponents is one thing. But counterprogramming some sad sideshow to siphon attention away from the first major candidate forum of the cycle — and with Tucker Carlson, no less? That’s a whole different level of petulant and needy, and it speaks to his staggering disregard for voters and their right to accurately assess the field. The electorate, especially Trump-skeptical Republicans, should demand better.I get why Mr. Trump isn’t eager to climb into this sandbox. Debating is hard, and he is out of practice. He participated in only two debates during the 2020 cycle, the first of which was the stuff of campaign legend — but in a bad way. (Proud boys, stand back and stand by!) At some point during Wednesday’s two-hour event he would need to talk about something other than his grievances. He hates doing that, and has always been kind of lousy at it. Much of the primary field he is now facing is younger, sharper, hungrier and actually cares about policy and governance. And while few people have Mr. Trump’s razzle-dazzle, at least a couple of his opponents have solid media chops. (Ramaswamy, baby!)Mr. Trump may well be correct to assume he has more to lose than gain from these matchups. But it bears remembering that debates aren’t supposed to be primarily for the benefit of the candidates strutting and fretting upon the stage. They are meant to provide voters with a meaty opportunity to judge their options side-by-side, to listen to them field tough questions, to compare their policies and priorities and visions of leadership. The point is to help the electorate make an informed choice.This is the case for every presidential hopeful. It is all the truer for Mr. Trump, who is dominating the Republican herd. Sure, he’s done the job before. But his performance was … well, unsettling enough that he lost re-election — and then handled the loss rather poorly. Some Republican voters, especially all those suburban women he needs to win back, might care to hear why he thinks they should give him another chance, especially now that he is up to his comb-over in legal trouble. His high-handed decision to skip this debate risks underscoring to these voters how unserious he is about winning their support and expanding his base even a whit, versus staying comfortably focused on his MAGA fans.Mr. Trump’s participation would reveal much about the other candidates as well. How would the field handle it when he started spewing his conspiracy nonsense? Who would call him out? (If these debate strategy memos are any indication, not Pudding Fingers DeSantis.) Would anyone be able to wrest the spotlight from him?Even with Mr. Trump missing, there will be much awkward talk of him. (Or so Fox News’s debate moderators promise.) You would think that, if he were in fighting form, he would want to be on hand to keep the pretenders to his throne in line — or, more precisely, to humiliate his critics face-to-face. I mean, lobbing fat jokes at Chris Christie from afar can provide Mr. Trump only so much satisfaction, particularly since Mr. Christie has been calling him a liar, a coward, and a con artist of late.Instead, the former president is taking the cheap and entitled way out, fulfilling at least one of Mr. Christie’s critiques. After weeks of being tiresomely coy about his debate-night plans, he has decided to sit down with the disgraced pundit Tucker Carlson, The Times reported on Friday. The man is notoriously fickle, so who knows when — or even if — this will actually happen. Let’s hope it doesn’t. I’m sorry, but we already watched Mr. Carlson give Mr. Trump a thorough bootlicking back in April, not long before Fox News gave Mr. Carlson the boot, in fact, and it was sad. Worse than watching Don Jr.’s videos-for-hire on Cameo. No one needs to see more of that.The Republican debaters, meanwhile, will be left to struggle with the thorny challenge of how to prevent Mr. Trump from hijacking the event in absentia. His antidemocratic inclinations and parade of indictments will have to be addressed. But then everyone really should move on to other issues, leaving the attention-thirsty former president in the shadows. If a Trumpless debate winds up being all about Mr. Trump anyway, he is the winner.This election cycle is still young, and there will be other debates. The next one, in fact, was announced just last week. (Mark your calendars for Sept. 27!) Republican voters who are feeling even slightly ambivalent about a Trump nomination/coronation should make clear that they expect him to start showing up — and soon, before the field has been whittled way down.Sure, the MAGA faithful don’t care about such niceties as accountability. But they do not constitute the majority of the Republican Party. The non-MAGA masses can take this primary in another direction if they choose. Many of those voters have reservations about Mr. Trump’s fitness for office — or at least about his electability. (The guy has been responsible for an awful lot of losing since 2016.) They deserve to take his measure directly against the field’s alternatives. And they are in a position to punish him if he cannot be bothered to even try.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More