Conservative-media debate

How the RNC squashed its only conservative-media debate

The Washington Times and Liberty University were planning for a year. And then the Republican Party pulled the plug.

By Hadas Gold and Shane Goldmacher

More than a year ago, huddled in secret, the Republican National Committee began negotiations with conservative news organizations to wrest at least one presidential primary debate from the grip of the mainstream media. It was to be an event by and for the GOP’s base, free of the constraints of a big network, to ensure candidates a forum to speak about conservative issues in a conservative frame for conservative voters.

That debate would have happened this week at Liberty University with The Washington Times in the lead. Instead, the GOP's at times unwelcome front-runner Donald Trump walked onto the stage originally reserved for the forum and bungled Bible quotes in front of an evangelical audience.

When the RNC announces today that The Washington Times will be teaming up with CNN for the final GOP debate, it will mark the end of a tense months-long negotiation among the conservative media outlet, the campaigns, television networks and the GOP. It was a battle that scarred the newspaper, sidelined a senior RNC official, and threatened to damage the Republicans’ relationship with one of the most influential evangelical voices in the country.

“It would have been ground breaking. It would have been different. It was a missed opportunity and now we’ll end up with traditional debates” said John Solomon, former Editor and Vice President for Content of The Washington Times who was the point person for the paper throughout the planning. “I hope someone picks up the scent on this trail and follows this through. Because there’s somewhere a way to create a new style of debate... This came close and I was disappointed this didn’t happen but I believe the kernel of a good idea is there.”

Talks about hosting a conservative, grassroots debate began as far back as autumn 2014. RNC officials and the Times visited Liberty multiple times, with Liberty at one point flying the negotiators and the production team the group planned to use down to the university at the school’s expense. Liberty even moved a scheduled, televised NCAA basketball game from its Vines center to accommodate the January 2016 forum.

And by early November 2015, more than a year after those talks began, reports of a coming Jan. 16 debate began to surface, quoting Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr. and RNC chief strategist and spokesman Sean Spicer, who then was the lead negotiator on the debates and spearheaded the very idea of a conservative-run forum.

The debate would have been a first on several counts. There would have been no network controlling the debate; the signal would have been an open feed, meaning any one could broadcast the debate or live stream it on their site. Fox News’ Sean Hannity and Bloomberg Politics’ Mark Halperin were approached about moderating. And questions would have been culled from viewers of local news outlets around the country, students at Liberty University and soldiers stationed overseas.

“Being able to empower soldiers deployed overseas to ask questions, to get students in the audience at a school, to get real people in the real world …that was the fundamental opportunity and I think that’s what got lost in the shuffle,” said Solomon, who left the Times in December to become chief creative officer for digital news site Circa.

But by the end of November, all of the planning came to a screeching halt.

On Monday, Nov. 30, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus told Liberty and Falwell that the debate was being scrapped because the logistics of setting up and running this kind of event were simply too overwhelming for the party to handle without the aid of a television network.

Barry Bennett, Ben Carson’s former campaign manager, said Priebus placed the blame squarely on the lack of what he described as a proper media partner.

But what really changed the game, according to The Washington Times’ Solomon and others involved in the process, was the CNBC debate on Oct. 28 – a forum whose format, questions and moderators infuriated the Republican campaigns so much that candidates began to move against the RNC.

After that debate, a widely panned event marked by contentious questions that angered the candidates, the campaigns went to the unprecedented step of holding multiple meetings among themselves and drafting a never-sent letter of demands to give future debate hosts as they tried to take control of the debate process out of the party’s hands.

Suddenly, the RNC was no longer talking about a grassroots debate. It was consumed by the effort to calm its 2016 field, and retain its lead role in the debate process. And less than a week after the CNBC debate, RNC chief operating officer Sean Cairncross was made the lead point person on all future debates, moving Spicer out of the role.

“After that, I was told the RNC’s tolerance for risk taking was lower, even though they loved the idea of a grassroots debate,” Solomon said.

At the same time, Fox Business Network had been lobbying the RNC for another debate, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations. After the network’s successful first turn at hosting a forum on Nov. 10, the RNC agreed to let the Fox family take on another. By late November the deal was done.

The RNC announced on Dec. 8 that Fox Business would host a Jan. 14 debate, putting the final nail in the coffin of the conservative-media debate planned for Liberty University.

Solomon said he and The Washington Times were stunned, the announcement coming seemingly out of nowhere. The newspaper and Liberty had put months of work and plenty of money into planning and organizing an event.

“Liberty worked enormously hard to make it work. They were great partners. I found nothing but great partnership there. They put a lot of effort into it. Everyone was a little dismayed at how they found out it wasn’t happening, but all throughout the RNC was looking for a way to make everyone whole,” Solomon said.

The RNC began the task of salvaging relationships with both the Times, which by some accounts was furious, and Liberty.

Ultimately, the RNC promised The Washington Times a partnership in a future debate – now revealed to be the March CNN Debate – in exchange for a promise that the newspaper would not report on how the conservative-media debate fell apart. Solomon wouldn’t comment on the deal struck with the RNC, saying that by then he was on his way out of the paper, and current Times leadership did not respond to calls or emails.

As for Liberty University, Spicer connected the University with Citizens United to discuss hosting a candidate forum on Feb. 16. But with many of the candidates, including Ted Cruz and Ben Carson having already made appearances at the University, it was a tough crowd to draw.

Even more difficult though was getting Donald Trump to commit, according to comments Falwell gave the local Lynchburg paper, The News & Advance, in January. Then he said a number of candidates wouldn't sign on to participate unless Trump was there and Trump’s staff would rather he appeared solo.

And so he did.

"Since Donald Trump last visited Liberty, our family has stayed in close contact with him and with his top aide, Michael Cohen,” Falwell said in a statement in early January when announcing Trump’s visit. “We are thrilled that they are taking time out of their extremely busy schedule to return to Liberty.”

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

And as for the RNC, the spokesman shifted off debate logistics suggested all is well: "While we hoped this event could have happened,” Spicer said, “we are very proud of the historic role conservative media has and will play this cycle because of the RNC.”