Who you saw as the winner of last nightâs Republican Primary debate is largely a Rorschach test.
As is often the case with these wide-field debates, you could easily make a case for any of the candidates having had the best night. (Well, maybe not Chris Christie.)
Whatâs not nearly as debatable, however, is who had the roughest night of them all.
Fox News, which presented the debate, had its work cut out from the beginning. The network had the unenviable task of broadcasting the first Republican Debate without the leading candidate, Donald Trump.
(The former president instead took to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, for a revealing interview with Tucker Carlson.)
Even without the star attraction, however, Fox couldâve salvaged the night by keeping the candidates in check, keeping discussions brief and substantive, and sticking to topics relevant to what Republican voters actually care about.
By this writerâs humble calculations, Fox went an embarrassing 0-3 on that particular scorecard.
The first two failures (not keeping candidates in check and not keeping debates brisk) are somewhat common in any debate presentation, to be fair.
Still, it was rather comical seeing former Vice President Mike Pence ignore the time restraints to deliver his wooden message. It was jarring to see off-topic, Trumpian bickering among the candidates, particularly when things devolved between Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy.
But again, these sins are hardly unique to Fox News. You will see the same criticisms hurled at CNN and MSNBC when theyâre the ones hosting a debate.
No, where Fox really lost the plot was with its choice of questions.
At best, you could describe them as irrelevant. At worst, you could say that these questions exposed just how sorely out of touch Fox is with its purported base.
Where to even begin?
How about with a question about UFOs, which actually drew a snide remark from Christie and laughter from the crowd?
Or how about the far-left cause of climate change? Whatever you may think of mankindâs ability to change the weather, itâs certainly not a winning topic for Republicans.
Viewers certainly noticed Foxâs peculiar choice of questions:
âBiggest loser in tonightâs debate? Fox News,â one X user posted. âRNC, fix this!â (For what itâs worth, The Hill agreed with that assessment.)
Just as noticeable as what was asked was what wasnât asked â namely, a question on the red-hot topic of transgenderism. When something has torpedoed brands like Bud Light and Target, one can assume American voters care about it.
Fox hardly broached the subject at all, with the moderators only mentioning it once in relation to womenâs sports.
So, Fox News exposed itself as horribly out of touch with Republican voters and probably turned off swathes of prospective viewers who may have tuned in to give the beleaguered network a second chance.
It couldnât get worse⌠right?
Wrong.
The above is Trumpâs interview with Carlson. Itâs been embedded for your viewing pleasure, but thereâs a good chance youâve seen it already.
Why? Because that X video has already garnered over 200 million views as of this writing. Thatâs a massive number â and one that will certainly put Fox to shame.
Itâs just another reason why Fox News will want to quickly forget about last nightâs Republican Debate.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.