What stories topped your priority lists this week? The truly top story of the week was the first Republican presidential primary debate on Wednesday evening, and both Duane Patterson and I tee up our arguments for winners and losers. But we also delve into the performance of Fox News and debate moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, and we both have criticism for how the debate played out. Even before Mediaite issued its deconstruction of viewership claims by Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump, Duane and I walked through the reasons why viewers should take those claims with large grains of salt.
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Welcome to our VIP feature for Hot Air as well as a members-only show in the Hughniverse! Duane Patterson and I now are doing a Week in Review show for Friday evenings, exclusive to members in both platforms. Duane has been the Generalissimo behind the Hugh Hewitt Show for more than two decades, and we have partnered on weekly commentary since 2007.
Here are some of the highlights, starting off with the discussion of non-debate topics:
- Converting the mug shot into a fundraiser is a smart thing for Team Trump to do, I argue. Duane agrees on that point but says he and Hugh are going to avoid it, as it’s being used for “TDS porn” by Trump’s opposition. “I just don’t like the idea of it,” Duane says, “the whole circus environment of it. … I feel just as dirty and wanting to take a shower,” he adds, “as if I were to show some revealing porn clip.”
- We both agree that Fani Willis’ attempts to get an October trial date for a RICO case involving 19 defendants is absurd and unlikely to come to trial even before the general election, let alone the primaries. But the classified material-obstruction trial is “where he’s in the most peril,” Duane says, and I agree.
- If any of Willis’ defendants win a removal motion, I predict the RICO predicate will get tossed anyway. If so, I argue, that “means that all you’ve got now is a few disparate crimes that you can’t link together, including one alleged crime that’s outside of Fani Willis’s jurisdiction in Coffee County.”
- Why did Fox News issue such restrictive conditions on the use of clips from the debate? Duane thinks it was to counter the counter-programming from Trump with his interview with Tucker Carlson. I give some credit to Fox with overuse of “fair use” by media outlets in previous debates, but scoff that 3 minutes of a 120-minute RNC debate is the upper limit on “fair use.”
- That leads us into the “viewership” vs “impressions” discussion, which later got validated by Mediaite.
- From there we go to the debate itself — and who won, who improved their standing, and who pointedly did not.
Be sure to watch it all, and extend the conversation in the comments!
