John Kasich on Saturday shrugged off suggestions that CNBC’s moderators were unfair during this week’s Republican debate, a departure from his 2016 rivals and party leaders who have complained that Wednesday’s contest focused on “gotcha” questions.
“In the third debate, they asked me a lot of questions and I didn’t feel anything was below the belt,” Kasich told CNN’s Michael Smerconish.
“I don’t want to spend my time talking about the process of the debate. However they set it, I’ll show up and do the best I can to let people know who I am. So it’s just not something I’m focused on,” he added.
The Republican National Committee suspended its February debate with NBC News amid anger over CNBC’s handling of this week’s event in Boulder, Colorado.
“While debates are meant to include tough questions and contrast candidates’ visions and policies for the future of America, CNBC’s moderators engaged in a series of ‘gotcha’ questions, petty and mean-spirited in tone, and designed to embarrass our candidates,” RNC chairman Reince Priebus said in an open letter sent to NBC News chairman Andrew Lack on Friday
NBC said in a statement it will “work in good faith to resolve this matter.”
Ted Cruz, one of the fiercest objectors to CNBC’s handling of the debate, said Saturday at a Republican forum in Des Moines, Iowa, that he does not want “left-wing operatives” moderating the debate who want to leave the Republican general election nominee “battered and bruised.”
He recommended Fox News anchor Sean Hannity and conservative talk radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin as potential moderators.
“Let me lay out a radical proposition: How about we say from now on if you have never voted in a Republican primary in your life, you don’t get to moderate a Republican primary debate,” Cruz said.
“I did think it was fitting the debate occurred the week of Halloween because the moderators were doing everything they could to ask every candidate, ‘Are you more of a ghoul or a goblin?'” he added.