Matt Drudge, editor of the influential Drudge Report, said Tuesday that CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who will moderate that night’s Democratic presidential debate, is in danger of becoming a “laughing stock.”
Drudge warned that as moderator, Cooper will have to walk a fine line.
“Anderson Cooper has very challenging job tonight,” Drudge wrote on Twitter. “Too Soft: Will be laughing stock. Too Hard: Punished by liberal media circles.” Cooper will moderate the debate along with his colleagues Dana Bash and Don Lemon.
Leading up to the debate, Cooper has fallen under scrutiny from conservatives anticipating he may go easy on the candidates.
In a blog post on Tuesday, the conservative Weekly Standard, which is owned by the same company as the Washington Examiner, recalled that Cooper is a former member of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s Clinton Global Initiative nonprofit.
“CNN’s not gonna do anything to make any of these people look bad,” conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said on Monday. “They rally the troops. They circle the wagons. They do everything they can to protect.”
On Sunday, Cooper indicated that he would not attempt to instigate confrontations among the five Democratic candiates who will share a stage for the first time this primary season on Tuesday night.
“I’m always uncomfortable with that notion of setting people up in order to kind of promote some sort of a face off,” Cooper said Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” “Look, these are all serious people. This is a serious debate. They want to talk about the issues and I want to give them an opportunity to do that.”
Cooper’s suggested style is a departure from the GOP debate hosted by CNN and moderated by Jake Tapper in September.
Before that debate, Tapper had said he was “trying to craft questions that, in most cases, pit candidates against the other.”
