Trump to debate moderator Holt: We don’t want another Candy Crowley

Donald Trump on Thursday offered some advice to Lester Holt, who will moderate Monday’s presidential debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton: Don’t be Candy Crowley.

The Republican presidential nominee suggested that the “NBC Nightly News” anchor be a moderator, not a fact-checker, a recommendation that comes after NBC’s Matt Lauer faced intense criticism earlier this month after allowing Trump’s assertion that he didn’t support the Iraq War go unchecked.


“Well, I think he has to be a moderator,” Trump told “Fox and Friends” of Holt during a phone interview Thursday morning. “I mean, you’re debating somebody and if she makes a mistake or I make a mistake, I’ll, you know, we’ll take each other on. But I certainly don’t think you want Candy Crowley again.”

Crowley, who moderated a 2012 debate at Hofstra University, where Trump and Clinton will square off Monday, attempted to fact check then-GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who said it took President Barack Obama 14 days to call the attack in Benghazi, Libya, an “act of terror.”

“And she turned out to be wrong. I really don’t think you want that,” Trump said. “That was a very pivotal moment in that debate. And it really threw the debate off and it was unfair. So I don’t think you want that. No, I think you have to have somebody that’s just — let them argue it out.”

PolitiFact later rated Romney’s criticism “half true,” noting that Obama did say “act of terror” right after the attacks but that the administration did not speak “consistently in the days that followed."