Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said over the weekend that it would be a good idea to let Rush Limbaugh moderate one of the next GOP debates, but the conservative radio host doesn’t seem to share the sentiment.
On his radio show Monday, Limbaugh told a call-in listener that he was more interested in the farfetched idea of moderating a Democratic debate.
“I don’t know,” Limbaugh said, according to a transcript of the call on his website.
“Rush, come on, man, you can find one evening,” said the caller. “You don’t need to prepare.”
“No, no, that’s not it,” Limbaugh said. “I think if I moderate a debate, it ought to be a Democrat debate. I mean, if you’re gonna even this out and we’re gonna make this fair, you let me moderate the next debate with Hillary [Clinton] and the Socialist [Bernie Sanders] and the abs [Martin O’Malley].”
Several of the GOP candidates have complained that the moderators and format of the previous debates have been “unfair” in terms of the questions for the candidates and the timing allotted for each person to speak.
The Republican National Committee attempted to take control of the debate process at the start of the year by asking each of the hosting networks to include a conservative media element in the process. It still left some of the candidates like, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, unsatisfied.
At an event in Iowa on Saturday, Cruz said that previous debate moderators were “a bunch of left-wing operatives” who would never vote in a GOP primary.
“How about instead of a bunch of attack journalists, we actually have real conservatives,” he said. “Could you imagine a debate moderated by Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin?”
Unlike Limbaugh, radio host Mark Levin has said he is open to moderating a Republican debate.
“I’d only be open to doing it if people wouldn’t tell me what to do,” Levin said in a radio interview on Monday.
