Stakes are high for Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, hosted by Fox Business Channel in North Charleston, S.C., with it being one of the last chances for the candidates to stand out in front of a big audience ahead of the Iowa caucuses.
Debate moderator Neil Cavuto expects that pressure to surface at the event.
“Sometimes Mother Teresa could be asking the questions, and if you’re a candidate in trouble or down in the polls or your donors are backing away, you’re going to lash out,” he said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter.
This will be the second debate hosted by Fox Business. The first was in November and followed another GOP debate by Fox’s competitor, CNBC. The CNBC debate moderators were criticized, first and foremost by the candidates, for posing a series of confrontational, sometimes hostile questions.
The Fox Business debate was a more low-key event by comparison, with the moderators opting for more policy and finance-oriented questions.
But as the first contest of the primary season draws nearer, with the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1, Cavuto said the atmosphere will likely be different at Thursday’s debate.
“With a couple of weeks to go [before the first caucuses and primaries], they’re going to get desperate,” he said of the candidates. “We should be cognizant of that. If we had the Fox News debate, the first one [last August] today, it might be a very different debate. So it’s pressure city.”
On stage for the main debate will be Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and John Kasich. Each has his own urgent reasons to deliver a memorable performance.
Trump may go after Cruz, who has seen his support in Iowa match Trump’s. Christie, Bush and Kasich are all hoping to catch some momentum in New Hampshire, which follows the Iowa caucuses.
The Fox main debate airs at 9 p.m. after the so-called “undercard” debate at 6 p.m.
