The question that moderators should ask in tonight’s GOP presidential debate

What about Trump?

Tonight, the Republicans hold their third presidential debate in Miami. The first two debates were hosted by Fox News and Fox Business.

But tonight, the GOP steps out of its comfort zone and faces questions from NBC News and moderators Lester Holt and Kristen Welker, along with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Will Holt and Welker do what we didn’t see in the first two debates? Will someone ask these candidates about the only person who really matters on the Republican side at the moment when it comes to the 2024 presidential election? Will someone ask about Donald Trump?

Trump has a huge lead in every poll about the likely Republican nominee. And yet he is facing what feels like a thousand legal problems, including an ongoing trial in New York about his business practices.

Yet despite this anvil teetering over the head of Trump and the Republican Party, no one has asked the other candidates their thoughts on all of Trump’s legal problems — including serious charges that could stop him from becoming president. Other than a few moments when some candidates (Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis) have invoked Trump’s name on their own, the word “Trump” has barely come up in the first two debates.

And while the candidates are there to talk about their policies and ideas for the future, and what they would do if they were president, one can’t help but wonder: What do they think of Trump?

It would seem that they would have plenty of thoughts about him, seeing as how they are hanging around in a race where, as of this moment, they appear to have no chance of winning.

Are they hanging around in case Trump’s legal troubles take him down? Are they hanging around in hopes of being asked to be Trump’s running mate? Are they hanging around in hopes of turning their 2024 experience into a 2028 presidential bid?

Wouldn’t you love to know the answers to these questions?

Tonight. Holt and Welker have a chance to ask the candidates what they really think of Trump — since the moderators from Fox didn’t bother.

Of course, even if Trump’s name does come up, it won’t be the focus of the debate. NBC News has announced that the debate will look closely at the national security implications of the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as a series of domestic political developments.

Those are all worthy topics.

So is Trump.

Tonight’s format

The debate starts at 8 p.m. Eastern. There will be four segments over the course of two hours, punctuated by three commercial breaks.

Candidates will have 90 seconds to answer questions. Each candidate will get a chance to answer the same first question at the top of the debate.

We are now down to five candidates, aside from Trump, who will not participate for the third consecutive debate. The five are: former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

A Swift reaction

In Tuesday’s newsletter, I wrote about Gannett's much-anticipated hire of a reporter to cover music icon Taylor Swift. The reporter is Bryan West, a 35-year-old former TV producer. I mentioned some of the challenges ahead, such as access to Swift and whether or not West could cover her critically given that he is a big fan.

But I heard from many Poynter Report readers on Tuesday about something I absolutely should have mentioned — that Gannett hired a man to cover a woman whose work often reflects the female experience.

Leanne Potts, an Atlanta-based freelance journalist, wrote to me, “Are you even going to point out the incredible irony of Gannett hiring a male to cover a feminist icon who writes songs about tribulations faced by women?”

Potts added that Gannett is “out of touch” with “their readers and Swift's fans.” She then quoted a song lyric: "I'm sick of running as fast as I can/Wondering if I'd get there quicker if I was a man.”

“Guess who wrote that?” asked Potts, who then added, “You missed the lede, Tom.”

Potts is absolutely right. I dropped the ball for failing to see that perhaps the biggest issue isn’t that West is a fan of Swift, but that he’s a man.

Ann Handley, another Poynter Report reader, wrote, “In the year of Barbie, Gannett hired a man to cover Taylor Swift? … Read the room, Gannett.”

I received several other emails that said, basically, the same thing.

Meanwhile, the reaction on social media ranged from disappointment to outright anger.

One tweeted, “USA today undermined how much Taylor is girlhood and how much we would hate this. No hate on the dude, but we all know that position was meant for a woman.”

Another tweeted, “I will never stop complaining that an artist who has one of the most unapologetically feminine bodies of work was given a male journalist to write about her full time. We never see this happening in reverse either.”

And another simply tweeted, “They hired a man to cover Taylor Swift. Okay.”

Could Biden coverage influence Biden?

If there’s one thing that the past few elections have taught us, it’s that the media needs to be careful when it comes to polls. Misreading or misleading polls can lead to the type of horse race coverage that so many deplore.

Having said that, last weekend’s New York Times/Siena College poll looking ahead to the 2024 presidential election has, unquestionably, spooked Democrats. The polls show President Joe Biden trailing Donald Trump in key battleground states. Not only trailing, but trailing by a lot.

The polls show Trump with leads between four and 10 percentage points in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. The only battleground state where Biden leads is Wisconsin, where he was ahead by two percentage points.

Even though the election is still a year away and so much can happen between now and then, the numbers have some questioning whether Biden should even run.

After the Times published its poll results, CNN contributor and former Obama strategist David Axelrod tweeted, “​​Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it's in HIS best interest or the country's?”

In an interview with Politico’s Shia Kapos and Adam Cancryn, Axelrod said, “It’s overreacting to say I told him to drop out. I didn’t do that.” Axelrod added, “He’s the only one to make the decision. And if his decision is ‘no, I’m the best person to take this on,’ then he will.”

Still, some are wondering if Biden should announce he would not run again in 2024.

NBC News’ Peter Nicholas, Megan Lebowitz, Katherine Doyle and Alex Seitz-Wald wrote, “Pick a metaphor: President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign is a ‘five-alarm fire.’ It’s a cardiac case in need of a ‘defibrillator.’ Or a lemming on course to ‘slowly march into the sea and drown.’ All come from Democratic strategists whose low-boil frustrations with Biden’s candidacy erupted over the weekend amid a spate of bleak polling numbers.”

Then there was this opinion piece in The New York Times from John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School: “Joe Biden Is in Trouble.”

For now, there is no indication that Biden is considering not running in 2024. But could this growing media attention and coverage creep into Biden’s thinking? Or those close to Biden?

TV ratings since the war began

It has been a month since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. And over that time, CNN and Fox News have seen increased viewership, while MSNBC’s numbers have dropped.

Can’t say I’m surprised. CNN is typically a go-to source for breaking news, especially international news such as a war.

In the four weeks since the war began, CNN’s prime-time ratings are up 17% compared to the four weeks prior. Fox News’ prime-time ratings are up 10%. But MSNBC’s prime-time ratings have dropped 11%.

“Yes, but,” Axios’ Sara Fischer writes, “MSNBC has since started to claw back. The network saw a significant jump in prime-time viewers in the second week of the war compared to the first. Primetime ratings in weeks three and four were also up compared to the first, but have dropped sequentially since the second week.”

It also should be noted that cable news ratings at the start of the war in Ukraine tapered off after about a month. However, more Americans seem to be engaged, perhaps because of personal circumstances, in the war between Israel and Hamas.

Meet the new boss

New Washington Post chief executive Will Lewis (actually he starts after the first of the year) met with Post staff for the first time this week. Vanity Fair’s Charlotte Klein wrote, “Lewis, 54, read the room, and disarmed it with a mix of self-effacing humor, non-corporate speak, and candor, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by Vanity Fair.”

In the meeting, Lewis told staff, “We’re not in a place that we want to be in and we need to get to that place as fast as we can. It’s not going to happen overnight. You’ll find me very cooperative. I’m not a respecter of hierarchy when it comes to great ideas. I think the best ideas for our organization are going to be buried deep in the company, with someone who’s not a senior manager, hasn’t ever been listened to, but they will have the answers to what we need to do. We need to find those ideas.”

Media tidbits

• The New York Times’ Rebecca Carballo with “City to Dismiss Citations Issued to Reporter for Asking Too Many Questions.” The Chicago Tribune’s Gregory Royal Pratt also writes about this story.
• CNN’s Oliver Darcy with “George Stephanopoulos grilled a GOP congressman on the 2020 election. Here’s why he said it had to be done.”
• Louis Bayard reviews Barbra Streisand’s new 970-page memoir for The Washington Post: “Barbra Streisand’s memoir is long and dishy. Here are the highlights.”
• And the always superb Wesley Morris from The New York Times: “Barbra Streisand Is Ready to Tell All. Pull Up a Seat.”
• For the Columbia Journalism Review, Jon Allsop with “The untimely death of a masterful climate communicator.”

Hot type

• This is from a week ago, but it’s remarkably well-done journalism. The New York Times used video evidence, data and interviews to reconstruct the wildfire that raged through Maui in August. It’s Mike Baker, Malika Khurana, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Riley Mellen, Natalie Reneau, Bedel Saget, Elena Shao, Anjali Singhvi and Charlie Smart with “The Deadly Maui Inferno, Hour By Hour.”
• On Oct. 28, a hockey player playing a pro league in England was killed when his neck was cut by an opponent’s skate blade during a game. The Athletic’s Michael Russo wrote about the memorial for the player in “In Hibbing, Minn., he was just ‘Adam’: Memories of Adam Johnson, a local hockey hero gone too soon.”

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Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].