Here Are 10 Debate Questions I Wish CNN Would Ask Donald Trump Tonight
The former president is beyond ignorant, so why not push him on some basic facts?
Tonight’s televised debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, at 9 p.m. ET on CNN, will be historic in a number of ways.
It’s the first-ever debate between a sitting president and a former president.
It’s the earliest presidential debate in American history.
And the two men are the oldest candidates to face off on a presidential debate stage, with a combined age of 159.
But can tonight’s moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, meet this historic moment? Will CNN be able to hold notorious liar and gaslighter Donald Trump’s feet to the fire – over the course of 90 minutes in Atlanta – after last year’s car crash of a town hall with him in New Hampshire?
The early signs aren’t great: David Chalian, CNN’s political director, told the New York Times that his network’s live debate “is not the ideal arena for live fact-checking” and that Bash and Tapper would be focusing on “facilitating the debate between these candidates, not being a participant in that debate.”
So… no fact-checking tonight. (ARGH!)
How about some factual questions though? Given Trump, according to his own former Defense Secretary James Mattis, has the understanding of “a fifth- or sixth-grader” (which some would argue is an insult to most fifth- and sixth-graders!), why not explore the limits of his understanding? His knowledge base? His grasp of basic facts?
It’s a point that Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii made on Twitter last week: “No sarcasm I still think that some of the debate questions should be like ‘what is the difference between Medicare and Medicaid?’ and ‘which is the Article 2 Branch of government’ and ‘What is the threshold for overriding a veto?’ and stuff like that.”
I agree with Schatz. We should be shaking up the format of these stale and tired “debates” and demanding that the candidates show actual knowledge of the political system, of American history, of the wider world. Such basic and simple questions have been avoided by far too many journalists for far too long, allowing a shallow Trump to hide much of his pig ignorance from the voters.
So here are 10 “fact” questions that I suspect the former president would struggle to answer tonight:
What do the letters in NATO stand for?
Does the UK have nuclear weapons?
Who were the “good guys” in World War I?
What does the Third Amendment say?
Where was your father born?
What is the nuclear triad?
Is Finland part of Russia?
What is the price of a gallon of milk?
In which century was Frederick Douglass alive?
Where is Nambia?
Ok, fine. It’ll never happen. Mainstream media journalists don’t have the guts to ask such questions of Trump – and, of course, they’d be instantly dismissed by his supporters as “gotchas.”
But a boy can dream, can’t he?
Back to the real world. We can expect Bash and Tapper to ask about the usual topics: the economy, immigration, democracy, and the like. So, in that vein, here are 10 more ‘traditional’ but still tough questions they could ask Trump tonight that might actually stump him:
In 2016, you said – in reference to Hillary Clinton – that “we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and ultimately a criminal trial” and that “would grind government to a halt.” Why does that not apply to you in 2024, given a criminal trial found you guilty of 34 felony charges, and you still face another 54 of them?
Can you name at least five members of your Cabinet who have endorsed your presidential bid?
Do you think candidates who call for the “termination” of the Constitution should be disqualified from running for president, given the president is supposed to swear an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”?
You said you have never read ‘Mein Kampf,’ so how did you end up repeatedly echoing Hitler’s words on the campaign trail this year?
Will you apologize tonight for hosting a Holocaust denier for dinner at Mar-a-Lago?
You had the worst jobs record of any president since Herbert Hoover, with three million fewer jobs in America when you left office than when you came to office. So why should Americans give you back the job of president?
Do you support a ceasefire in Gaza?
In a 2020 presidential debate, you said that the “stock market will crash” if Joe Biden is elected president, and yet the Dow Jones hit a record high last month. So why should anyone believe anything you say at this debate tonight?
You have said former Vice President Mike Pence had the “right” to throw out electoral votes for Biden on Jan. 6, 2021, and the power “to change the outcome” of the election? Do you, therefore, believe Vice President Kamala Harris has the “right” to do the same to your electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2025, and the power “to change the outcome” of this coming election?
Will you pledge tonight to accept the result of the presidential election in November?
If only this could be the debate!!
Hope you have at least sent these to CNN. They will ignore them, but one can dream