and current
special correspondent for Vanity Fair, is the author of the book
Network of Lies The Epic Saga of Fox News,
Donald Trump and the Battle for American
Democracy. Brian, good to see you again. What did you think of Dana Bash
and Jake TAPPER last night? Look, I have a lot of respect
for Jake and Dan. I have not talked to them,
though, about the debate. I think they were put into this
incredibly high stakes, high pressure situation. This entire debate for CNN
was really high risk, but also high reward. And I think CNN mostly came away
feeling those rewards. Yes, there's
these liberal complaints about the fact checking. But here's the thing,
Dan, philosophically, I totally agree
there should be fact checking. There should be live fact
checking philosophically. But as a practical matter,
it's almost impossible when you have these two men
on stage who all want to talk. They all want their turns to interrupt constantly to try
to point out flaws and mistakes. It's almost impossible
for those moderators. So it makes a lot of sense that the debate, the moderators
sat back. They allowed the actual debate
to happen. And honestly, I think we learned a lot
about these candidates because they were given
the space to actually say
what they wanted to say. CNN had a fact checker
online, Daniel Dale, who was in real time
doing fact checks. Some people said that at least they should have shown
that on the screen. What do you think of that? Right. You know, so I've been thinking
about that today. And I think that by the time that fact check
would appear on TV, the the candidates had moved on
to the next point. And so, again,
as a practical matter, I don't think it's possible. He's an example
of one of the Trump lies that really got under my skin. He said Biden wants to quadruple
your taxes. He wants to raise your taxes
four times. Now, that's pretty crazy. You hear that and you think, holy, holy moly, can you imagine
paying four times as much in taxes?
Of course, it's total nonsense. The Biden team proposed a four
as quadrupling the corporate buyback
tax for stocks from 1% to 4%. That's a quadruple increase,
but it's not going to happen and it wouldn't affect you
or me. Dan, Total nonsense. So by the time
you actually explain that, you see how I'm having a hard
time explaining it right now? Trump's already
on to the next point. That's why
I don't think a lot of fact checking was actually practical. But why are these people
complaining about today, Dan? Because they're ticked off
Biden. They're disappointed by Biden. They're frustrated
by how poorly he did. So they are trying to blame
the media.