Trump Know?

Does Donald Trump Know the Minimum Wage?

Unsolicited advice on how CNBC should question the GOP candidates.

By Jack Shafer

he TV interrogations of the 2016 presidential candidates—which are more group press conferences than straight-ahead debates—shift on Wednesday night to CNBC, where two sets of Republicans will be fielding the questions. But the main topics under discussion at both the overcard and undercard events will be the same: money, money and money. CNBC is all about cash—how to get it, how to make it grow and how to avoid having it taxed. Think I’m kidding? The network has even come up with a capital name for the broadcast: “Your Money, Your Vote: The Republican Presidential Debate.”

The narrowing of topics from “everything” to “all things economic” could make the CNBC session the most revealing debate yet—or it could reduce it to a gabby episode of The Suze Orman Show. The problem with grilling candidates on economic topics is that every campaign can assemble a posse of economists to supply whatever buttressing a candidate may require to prop up his proposed policies. Each candidate will be free to repel aggressive policy questions with a boilerplate, “That’s not what my board of economic experts says,” every time one of the questioners (John Harwood, Becky Quick and Carl Quintanilla) challenges one of their economic policy statements.

While a candidate can protect his positions on other issues—foreign policy, gun control, global warming, immigration, abortion, et al.—by citing his “experts,” this dodge works especially well when the subject is economic policy, the most abstract and least emotional entrée on any political menu. With only 120 minutes, minus commercials and opening and closing statements, of debate time on CNBC, the 10 candidates in the overcard debate will get only an average of about 12 minutes of face time. With so many faces on the stage and so much ground to cover, the candidates should be able to filibuster their way past fundamental questions about taxes (“Lower!”), economic growth (“More!”), trade (“Fairer!”), the debt, the deficit, the budget (“Lower!”), savings (“For it!”), Social Security (“Fix it!”) and the overall health of the economy (“Terrible!”) with aggressive assertions, some wild gesticulation and a few well-planned cracks about the “Obama economy.”

The best way to test the candidates’ economic bona fides is not to question them about their policies but to probe their basic understanding of the issues. This is what British broadcaster Jeremy Paxman did last spring when he questioned the standard-bearers—Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour Party leader Ed Miliband—in the United Kingdom’s parliamentary elections. Unlike many state-side TV inquisitors, Paxman doesn’t give his interview subjects an easel upon which to draw meandering answers. Instead, he asks simple, direct and revealing questions that test political intelligence and, by extension, leadership potential.

“How much money have you borrowed?” Paxman asked Cameron. Cameron bicycled away from the questions three times until he finally folded, saying, “You’re going to tell me, Jeremy, presumably.” The number, Paxman said, was £500 billion.

This exchange elegantly demonstrated Cameron’s low fluency when it came to understanding his government’s economic policies. Obviously, not every question in an economic debate need test for fluency, but the brilliant thing about such direct questions is the way they reveal to voters whether the presidential candidates have any idea of what they’re talking about and whether they can help formulate policy in an intelligent fashion should they be elected.

On the long shot that Harwood and Co. still have room on their dance card for additional questions, I propose these:

* What is the current federal minimum wage?

* What is the size of the deficit? Is it larger or smaller than it was when Barack Obama became president in 2009?

* What is the top marginal income tax rate? (I can guarantee you that Donald Trump knows the answer!)

* Do you advocate a stronger dollar or a weaker dollar? Is the dollar stronger or weaker than it was in 2009?

* Do you think the Chinese government unfairly manipulates its currency? What would a proper exchange rate be between the dollar and the renminbi?

* When did the Federal Reserve last raise interest rates? When did it last lower them?

* Why has job growth been better under Democratic presidents? Why has the deficit been much lower?

* Why has unemployment dropped from 10 percent to 5 percent?

Note that none of these questions is loaded with any sort of “bias.” Nor can any of them be dismissed as gotcha questions (like the name of an obscure nation’s president) which Republican political consultant Roger Stone defines as “a knowledge question in which the moderator attempts to make the person ... look stupid.” And their pure simplicity makes them impossible for a candidate to sidestep. Anybody running for president, the head of the largest economy in the world, should be able to essay in an accurate fashion on these questions without hesitancy. Should any of the candidates ignore the question and start answering one of their own devising, the questioner should butt in and say, “That’s not the question I’m asking,” and then restate the question until it’s answered or the candidate cries “uncle.” That’s what Paxman does. And we clearly need more Paxmans in American politics.

But as illuminating as such questions would be for the chattering class, the candidates need not fear a long-term impact from a misstep with the voting public. Will such basic debate questions turn the campaign? Probably not. Like political science professor John Sides, I doubt that any one or two booted questions can undo a vigorous candidacy. As Sides wrote in the Washington Monthly in 2012, “gaffes” in the general election debates have not traditionally damaged the gaffer. After Gerald Ford uttered his Eastern Europe gaffe in his 1976 debate with Jimmy Carter, it was Carter’s numbers that fell. Michael Dukakis’ bland response to a hypothetical question in the 1988 debates about his wife being raped and murdered didn’t move the Gallup Poll numbers. Events happening outside the debates, Sides tells us, appear to outweigh most debate effects.

We expect too much from presidential debates, especially debates featuring eight—or more—aspirants. Maybe by lowering our expectations and asking the candidates basic questions we can better define their capabilities. With 800 Republican debates remaining after tonight’s (whoops, only eight), it’s certainly worth trying for an evening.