Chris Wallace Says He’s “Just Sad” About How the Debate Went

For hundreds of years, presidential candidates have held debates against one another. There is a set of decorum and rules. Sometimes candidates bend these rules, but very rarely do they actually break them.

In 2016, along came Donald Trump. He spent much of his debates with Hillary Clinton attempting to menace her and frequently interrupting her.

Fox News host Chris Wallace had the misfortune of being tasked with moderating the first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Trump’s behavior was even worse than it was 4 years ago and Wallace struggled to keep order.

The Fox host was asked about the event today by the New York Times. “I’m just sad with the way last night turned out,” he said. “I never dreamt that it would go off the tracks the way it did.”

Wallace continued, “I guess I didn’t realize — and there was no way you could, hindsight being 20/20 — that this was going to be the president’s strategy, not just for the beginning of the debate but the entire debate.”

The moderator did say that the debacle was not solely on Trump though the president’s antic, “certainly didn’t help.”

Wallace closed his comments, “Generally speaking, I did as well as I could, so I don’t have any second thoughts there. I’m just disappointed with the results. For me, but much more importantly, I’m disappointed for the country, because it could have been a much more useful evening than it turned out to be.”