Fox News’ Chris Wallace says he wants to be “as invisible as possible” as a moderator during Tuesday’s first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
“One of these two people is going to be the next president of the United States and my job is to be as invisible as possible,” Wallace said during a preview for the debate that aired Monday on Fox News. “I’m trying to get them to engage to focus on the key issues, to give people at home a sense of why I want to vote for one vs. the other, but if I’ve done my job right, at the end of the night people will say, ‘That was a great debate. Who was the moderator?’”
During the 2016 presidential race between Trump and Hillary Clinton, Wallace moderated the third and final debate between the two contenders. At the time, Wallace said he did not want to treat the debate like a “TV show.”
“I take it very seriously,” Wallace said on his Sunday show ahead of the Trump-Clinton showdown. “This is not a TV show. This is part of civics, the constitution, if you will, in action, because this is helping millions of people decide who we’re going to elect as the next president.”
The first presidential debate begins on Tuesday at 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET and will air on the major broadcast networks as well as all cable news channels.
Topics selected by Wallace include “the Trump and Biden records,” the Supreme Court, COVID-19, the economy, “race and violence in our cities” and the “integrity of the election,” according to the Commission on Presidential Debates.