Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo will co-moderate the next Republican presidential debate, and that should probably sit well with GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
The two Fox Business anchors have spoken favorably about the billionaire real estate developer.
Bartiromo was asked about her thoughts on Trump in a recent interview with the online magazine Gotham. “I think he is making this election very exciting,” she said. “Have we ever been this engaged more than a year before an election takes place?”
Echoing a familiar line from Trump supporters, she said, “I like the way he says it the way it is. But he has to get much more specific.”
In June, Bartiromo said on NBC’s “Late Night” that Trump was “the epitome of what can be great about America.”
Cavuto has also lavished Trump with praise, perhaps to a greater extent.
In a 2012 commentary on his Fox News show, Cavuto hit the political media for dismissing Trump as a kind of joke sideshow, even though he often dominated their ink and airtime.
“I admit, I am biased here,” Cavuto said at the time. “I like Donald Trump. I’ve known him for decades. I like his guts. I like how he’s come back from the brink. I like how he keeps score and does things big and never forgets a slight.”
Calling Trump “unabashedly red, white and blue,” Cavuto continued, “I like how he took pride in a city others disdain and spoke bluntly and supported capitalism others, even Republicans, dismiss.”
The Fox Business debate is planned for Nov. 10 and may be the most Trump-friendly one thus far.
At the last debate, hosted by CNBC, Trump and several other candidates criticized the moderators, whom they charged with being unfair in their questioning.
The first question of the event was posed for Trump by John Harwood, who asked if the former reality TV star’s campaign was “a comic book version of a presidential campaign.”
“It’s not a comic book and it’s not a very nicely asked question, the way you say that,” Trump replied.
Before that, Trump went on a weeks-long attack against Megyn Kelly, a co-moderator of the first debate, which was hosted by Fox News in August, even going so far as to call on his nearly 5 million followers on Twitter to avoid watching her program.
The reason: Trump believed Kelly had been “unfair” when she asked him at the debate to answer for disparaging things he had said in the past about women.
“Honestly, Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry,” Trump said. “I’ve been very nice to you although I could probably maybe not be based on the way you have treated me, but I wouldn’t do that.”
