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Fox News’ Hume and Ingraham blast CBS debate moderators as ‘obnoxious,’ ‘smug and arrogant’

October 2, 2024 | | Print Article

Par for the course of late, the biggest losers of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate may have been the CBS News moderators — aside from the voters, of course.

The debate was moderated by “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell and “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan, and there was a moment early on when the duo attempted to fact-check Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), even though the network said there would be no fact-checking. Vance quickly turned the tables on the biased moderators, fact-checking their dubious fact-check until they cut his microphone.

Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume slammed the performance by O’Donnell and Brennan as “obnoxious,” with host Laura Ingraham doubling down on the criticism.

“Well, the moderators were obnoxious and made it feel like three-on-one on Vance,” Hume said in a clip shared by the Trump campaign. “And Vance was just fine… His skills as a debater and a speaker seem to have been honed to some extent by just these several months on the campaign trail. And for one so young, he seemed – in terms of his knowledge of policy – to run rings around poor Governor Walz, who I think did not have a very great night.”

Ingraham chimed in, stating that Republicans who questioned Trump picking Vance as his running mate had their concerns quelled.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Republican so deftly maneuver what was smug and arrogant bias on the part of those moderators,” Ingraham said. “Almost every question was designed to make Republicans look bad, slanting Trump’s views on childcare. And yet Vance seemed to take it all in stride. And he really, I think, with most questions, really showed his humanity and also his knowledge of the issues.”

“I don’t think he could’ve done better under the circumstances,” she continued. “And I think that is very reassuring to the public who thought he was perhaps an ogre or anti-woman or didn’t like kids or some strange concoction of the stereotypes that they were selling.”

Hume responded to an X post from Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway asking if the moderators were “embarrassed” by their performance.

“They don’t watch/read outlets where their obnoxious performance would be noted. I doubt they even know that Walz was lying about the abortion bill he signed,” he wrote.

As for criticism of O’Donnell and Brennan, there was no shortage of comments online, beginning with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who said: “Once again another major media outlet embarrasses themselves on a debate stage.”

Here’s Rubio’s response along with a sampling of others, as seen on X:

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