Debate Moderators Don’t Know Much About National Security
Viewers of the Democratic presidential debates learned quite a bit this week—from Joe Biden’s views of school busing to Marianne Williamson’s plan to defeat President Donald Trump with love. But I’d bet the next president will be consumed by an issue not a single person mentioned: cyber threats.
Sure, the moderators asked a few candidates what they thought the biggest foreign-policy threat was. There was a question about Iran, lots of talk about climate change, and some China bashing. But in four hours, with enough presidential candidates to play two basketball games and so many moderators they had to take turns sitting in chairs, the foreign-policy parts of the debate seemed truncated at best.
Worse still was the mismatch between the challenges the
