Prior to Monday night, the closest thing to a debate between the presidential candidates was the town hall on national security issues hosted by Matt Lauer three weeks prior. Though the candidates didn't share a stage, Lauer asked Hillary Clinton some specific questions about her email scandal, as did a member of the military from the crowd. Clinton performed terribly, but the big media narrative was that Lauer had somehow been unfair to Clinton because she had to answer multiple questions about her email, while Lauer didn't fact check Trump for saying he was always opposed to the Iraq war.
Since that town hall there was a steady drumbeat from the media and Clinton's campaign demanding that Trump be fact checked during the debate. Now that the debate has come and gone, we now know two things. One is—surprise!—Clinton is not great with the facts and could stand to bear a lot more scrutiny from the fact checkers. The second thing is that all of this pressure was designed to work the refs, and send a message to moderator Lester Holt that he shouldn't be too tough on Clinton. And it appears to have worked.
Last night Holt asked Trump directly about his taxes, his support of birtherism, comments he made about Hillary looking "presidential," and Trump's false claim that he was always against the Iraq war. These questions put Trump on the defensive for much of the debate.
The number of questions Holt asked Clinton about her ongoing email scandal, the Clinton Foundation's myriad or very questionable activities, or any of the other scores of relevant Clinton scandals going back decades? Exactly zero.
At one point, Holt did ask Clinton about cybersecurity, which should have been a hanging fastball for Trump to hammer on her private email server, and Trump whiffed badly. But if that was Holt's intent, he still failed at being impartial. Setting up a question is hardly the same thing as forcing a candidate to answer it directly.
Trump should've been much better prepared for the debate, no question. He missed big opportunities to question Clinton, and GOP candidates don't have the luxury of assuming the moderators will be fair to them. But that doesn't excuse the fact that Holt's questions were completely lopsided and gave Clinton a leg up in the debate.