Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker argued Friday morning that CNN’s Wednesday debate among Republican presidential candidates prevented a needed policy discussion, and instead focused on “pitting one [candidate] against the other.”
“I thought the American people were shortchanged,” said Walker on “Morning Joe” Thursday, adding that the candidates “were talking about personalities [but] we need to be talking about … policy.”
“I think there’s a real sense of urgency in America,” said Walker. “Amongst Republicans in particular, there’s an urgency out there that ‘hey, Republicans told us if we have the House and the Senate in Washington, they’d have a vote to repeal Obamacare. Here it is, after Labor Day, and they haven’t.’ Those are all things we should have been talking about in the debate and we didn’t.”
“I’m going to be talking about it on the campaign trail… because that’s what people want to talk about,” said the governor.
Joe Scarborough asked whether Walker wanted to talk about the issues during the debate, instead of respond to moderators’ requests that candidates address each others’ attacks.
“It was pitting one [candidate] against the other,” said Walker. “I haven’t been out on the trail attacking other Republicans, I’ve been attacking [Democrat presidential candidate] Hillary Clinton and [President] Barack Obama.”
Walker is not the only candidate to complain about the debate format. Florida Senator Marco Rubio said that CNN promoted the debate “like a pay-per-view boxing match” and said “it became clear very early that if you wanted to speak you had to interrupt somebody and jump in.”
