CNN’s Dana Bash joined “Pod Save America” this week to discuss her experience moderating the June debate between Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, saying that the default off microphone rule imposed by the network turned out to be a “built-in set of guardrails” for the former president.
Bash — CNN’s chief political correspondent and anchor — has already had an impressive election cycle lineup, between moderating the first debate alongside Jake Tapper and landing the first interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz following their acceptance of the Democratic Party’s nomination.
“Pod Save America” host Jon Favreau kicked off the interview by asking about Bash’s process for preparing for the debate, which she noted was very different this time around with the newly imposed rules, including the microphone being turned off unless the candidate was speaking in their given time slot.
“The jumping in was limited by the rules,” Bash said. “The rules were very strict, and we’re now seeing with ABC’s rules coming out that, you know, everybody has their own set of rules.” The CNN anchor added that preparations included a “lot of structure,” saying that it’s like an “Avengers Assemble moment” when everyone at the network comes together to prepare for a big event.
Favreau asked whether they typically have people play the candidates in a mock debate, to which Bash said yes, but noted that this time was a bit different.
“But a little secret: we didn’t do a mock for the actual debate we had,” she said. “We didn’t expect for that to be the way the debate went.”
Bash continued that they prepare for every scenario, “Knowing the nature of the candidates and how they tend to act and react in debates and interviews.”
“The thing about this debate, which ABC is going to deal with as well, is that he could have yelled at me or yelled at Jake at any time,” the CNN anchor said. “He was free to use his time however he wanted but he couldn’t do it when his mic was off.”
Bash further noted that this is why the Harris campaign was asking for ABC News to reevaluate the microphone rule, as Trump was far more behaved than at prior debates.
“We all realized real-time, especially the Biden team who wanted to impose that rule, that it was actually a built-in set of guardrails for Donald Trump, which his campaign was thrilled about,” Bash said. “You didn’t see the kind of Trump who we saw in several of the debates in 2020.”
Bash also said they had prepared for the chance that Trump spoke out of turn, practicing what would happen if the other microphone picked up his words but ultimately, that never occurred.
“What happened in reality is that knowing that the mic was off, Trump really didn’t say much when his mic was off and when Biden was speaking,” Bash said.
“So it kind of prevented him from acting out,” Favreau chimed in.
“It was, forgive me, moot,” Bash added.
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