debates

In reality, Andrew Cuomo is.

Here's a joke. It's from the late Mitch Hedberg: "I write jokes for a living, I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen is too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny." Mitch's jokes tended to…

During a recent Seattle City Council meeting, member Tim Burgess sought agreement on a juvenile justice issue by noting that "even some of our Republican friends" favor criminal justice reform. Council member Kshama Sawant, a socialist, stood to oppose what she saw as Burgess's unfounded claim, the…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with AEI resident fellow Andy Smarick on his recent story "With Smugness Toward None..."

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on Wednesday's presidential debate.

Despite rebukes from fellow Republicans and assurances from surrogates that Donald Trump really would accept the results of the presidential election, his campaign appears to be all-in helping him joke about the matter.

Talking with Fox News's John Fox on Thursday, Stephen Hayes talked about Donald Trump's knack for turning legitimate issues into outlandish conspiracy theories.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas

Virtually everyone around Donald Trump has offered assurances in recent days that the Republican nominee will accept the results of the election on November 8. Then on Wednesday, Trump refused to do so. And with his answer, he lost the debate and ensured, if it wasn't already a certainty, that he…

Third presidential debates usually don't matter. And there's a reason. The candidate who's behind tries to avoid mistakes made in the earlier debates and sound more clear-minded and knowledgeable. The candidate who's ahead simply plays it safe.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Tuesday's debate.

Let's get this out of the way up top: This was, by far, Trump's most disciplined debate performance. For 32 minutes, he almost sounded like a normal presidential candidate and for the first hour he wasn't terrible. Trump even seems to have spent some time preparing. He knew the name of a Supreme…

Hillary Clinton gave a perfunctory debate performance Wednesday night. Facing criticism for her private email server, her record at the State Department, and the Clinton Foundation, she leaned heavily on tiresome talking points, the kind she has repeated again and again on the stump for 18 months.

During Wednesday's presidential debate, Chris Wallace asked Hillary Clinton about the extent of her abortion support.

Wednesday night will probably be the last time Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are ever in a room together. (Unless Madam President accepts the invitation to Trump's next wedding.) But other than as a historical footnote, this debate doesn't really matter.

The Justice Department occupies a very delicate place our constitutional system. On the one hand, the attorney general serves at the pleasure of the president, who can fire his AG any time, for any reason or for no reason at all, which (as Justice Scalia explained) ensures that the people remain a…

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Sunday night's debate.

The emergence Friday of the disgusting Trump tape was a gift to the Republican party. It provided an occasion, at the very last minute, for the party to dump a fundamentally unworthy and radically unfit nominee. At the very least it provided an occasion for the party to separate itself radically…

Donald Trump is a terrible champion for Republicans for many reasons—the recently released 2005 audio tape reveals the most egregious one. But his performance in Sunday's debate in St. Louis against an ineffective Hillary Clinton demonstrated just how ill-equipped Trump is to challenge the weakest…

There is one important sense in which Donald Trump "won" the debate on Sunday night: He did not implode. He wasn't "good," or attractive, or knowledgeable. He was coarse and whiny and unpleasant. He lied constantly. And he became the first presidential candidate in the history of our Republic to…

If Donald Trump had acted in the restrained and calm manner that Mike Pence did in the vice presidential debate, he might have won his debate with Hillary Clinton last week. At least he wouldn't have embarrassed himself, which is what happened in the clash with Clinton.

Farmville, Va.

Virginia senator Tim Kaine avoided addressing Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state Tuesday during the vice-presidential debate, after being asked whether the scandals surrounding Clinton are fueling lack of trust among voters.

The vice presidential debate doesn't matter. It never matters. And if you want proof, consider Lloyd Bentsen. In 1988, Bentsen scored the biggest knockout blow in the history of vice presidential debates, hitting Dan Quayle in a moment so vivid that it remains the most memorable moment of the…

In this episode of THE WEEKLY STANDARD Confab, presidential debate veteran Fred Barnes on how, in his next Hillary face-off, Trump can recover from this week's disastrous debate performance. And Michael Warren takes us to the carnival that was the debate spin-room.

Donald Trump said the first presidential debate and the "system" were "rigged" on Thursday, despite saying he "loved" the debate and the "process" on Wednesday, which followed weeks of the Republican candidate predicting that his showdown with Clinton on Monday and the election would be tilted…

When the first presidential debate in 1984 ended, I walked across the stage to shake Ronald Reagan’s hand. I had been one of three media questioners. Reagan looked stricken. He was fully aware how poorly he had done. Walter Mondale had outperformed him.

Here's some post-debate analysis that'll make your head spin. Spin right off.

Writing at City Journal, Clifford Asness notes that neither candidate on the debate stage Monday night seemed willing or able to defend free enterprise or conservative economic ideas. "There were many frustrating examples in the first debate of Donald Trump failing even to challenge Hillary…

Donald Trump seemed to embrace the election process Wednesday, after repeatedly expressing alarm on the campaign trail in recent weeks that it would be "rigged" against him.

“It must be something really important, even terrible, that he's trying to hide," Hillary Clinton said during Monday night's debate. She suggested that Donald Trump hasn't released his tax returns because they would reveal venal tax-dodging: "Maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you…

The Guardian reports that "Murders in the US rose 10.8% last year, the biggest single-year percentage jump since 1971, according to data released Monday by the FBI."

During her debate with Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton implored, "please, fact checkers, get to work." Heeding her own call, her boast that while she was seretary of state exports to China increased 50 percent definitely needs to be put in context.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior editor Christopher Caldwell on why Monday night's debate was the biggest blowout in the history of modern presidential debates.

The French have a term for when the best lines occur to someone after leaving a meeting or a dinner party. They call it L'esprit de l'escalier, the wisdom of the stairs. Here is Donald Trump's morning-after-the-debate version.

Hillary Clinton set out to do Donald Trump the biggest favor she could Monday night: Depict him as a normal Republican.

After the debate, Donald Trump and his campaign have claimed that the Republican nominee won— according to all the polls. One new press release from Trump's campaign says he "leads post-debate surveys." It's not true. CNN and YouGov gave the win to Hillary Clinton, while the Drudge Report poll,…

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…

Bill Kristol joined MSNBC to discuss Monday night's presidential debate.

Hempstead, N.Y.

Hempstead, N.Y.

Donald Trump must have neglected to watch the video of Ronald Reagan in his 1980 debate with President Carter. Had he copied the restrained and imperturbable approach of Reagan—or at least tried to—Trump could have benefitted enormously from last night's debate with Hillary Clinton. But he didn't.…

Leading up to Monday's debate, Hillary Clinton, her surrogates, and no shortage of media figures, demanded that Trump be fact checked during the debate. And they wanted Trump fact checked in real time—even if it meant moderator Lester Holt interrupt him.

One of the theories I have about 2016 is that because the two most unpopular candidates in American history are running, the race tilts away from the candidate that has the country’s attention. When Hillary Clinton is front-and-center, as she's been for the last few weeks, she's losing. Ditto for…

Monday evening, Hillary Clinton was the archetypical post-New Deal liberal. Ever confident of the power of the federal government to tinker, she intends to grow the economy out "from the center" by strategically investing in clean energy, new social welfare programs, making the rich pay their fair…

In the first segment of the debate, Hillary Clinton started out on the defensive on trade, while Donald Trump did a pretty good job of making his case against free trade deals, NAFTA and the like (unsupported by most of the facts though that case may be). Trump also was able to tie that case to an…

All day long the mantra has been the same: In Monday's debate the bar is lower for Donald Trump—all he has to do is appear plausibly presidential. Commentators on the right and left have all hit the same note, arguing that Trump needs to ditch the feisty tabloid style that he brought to many of the…

Donald Trump likes dictators and likes to be liked by them. After meeting Egypt's president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last week, Trump called Sisi "a fantastic guy," gushing, "he took control of Egypt. And he really took control of it." Trump approves of the unprecedented repression that followed Sisi's…

Over at his excellent Kristol Clear podcast (to which you should most definitely subscribe,) Bill Kristol argues that Monday's debate could be a really big deal. His reasons include:

Hillary Clinton has been putting herself forward as the carefully reasoned candidate, behaving in calm contrast to the shoot-from-the-hip (and often shoot-in-the-foot) emotionalism of Donald Trump. Clinton's camp is convinced this strategy will win her the election. But it may actually be the thing…

You might not believe this, but we're just four weeks out from the first presidential debate and behind the scenes, prep is well underway. Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that Laura Ingraham is helping the Trump campaign prepare for the debates and may even wind up playing the part…

Donald Trump has confirmed speculation that he will not attend Monday's Republican debate, adding that the party has held plenty such forums, anyway.

Hillary Clinton violated debate rules in last night's duel in Miami, according to the Bernie Sanders campaign.

“A recent article somewhere said Donald Trump is a world-class businessman who goes out and he does get along with everybody," said Donald Trump early in Thursday's Republican debate in Detroit. The only "recent article somewhere" I can find where this is true is a December 29 Washington Post…

In Thursday’s Republican presidential debate, Ted Cruz called Obamacare "the biggest job-killer in America." Chris Wallace had asked Cruz what he would do to bring manufacturing jobs back to Detroit (the site of the debate) and the rest of the country, and the Texas senator replied, "The way you…

In theory, Ted Cruz’s best states are behind him. But at the Detroit debate, Cruz was clearly the class of the field and it's clear that no one should count him out as the delegate race moves into its next phase.

Over the course of the last 48 hours, the Rubio campaign pulled one of the great head-fakes in recent political history by telegraphing that they weren’t at all interested in attacking Donald Trump at tonight's debate.

In his indispensible newsletter, the Transom, Ben Domenech makes a profound observation about tonight’s debate: The best way to become the "Not Trump," is to beat Trump. And the way to beat him isn't to argue that he's a meanie or detail his ideological inconsistencies. It's to go full-alpha and…

As I watched the last few Republican debates, I was distracted, not for the first time, by a most nonpolitical thought: Don't they feel silly all wearing blue suits, white shirts, and red ties?

Ronald Reagan’s "eleventh commandment"—"thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican"—may be an unnecessarily strict standard, but the Republican presidential field could at least try to observe a twelfth commandment: Thou shalt avoid calling one's fellow Republican a liar.

It was a wild and woolly debate, with lots of arguments worth commenting on and exchanges worth evaluating. But as is sometimes the case in these debates, only one statement really mattered.

There wasn't much to like in last night's Republican debate in Greenville, South Carolina. I doubt if many people came away from the two-hour squabble feeling better about the GOP or its presidential candidates.

Earlier tonight, CBS announced the criteria to qualify for the upcoming GOP presidential debate in South Carolina:

Manchester, N.H.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie went after Florida senator Marco Rubio in Saturday's Republican debate:

At the beginning of Saturday night's Republican presidential debate, the moderators called Ben Carson's name, but for some reason he didn't come out onto the GOP debate stage. He stayed back for a few minutes, and eventually came out. Then the moderators seemed to forget about John Kasich.

Donald Trump said Friday that he will participate in the next FOX News-sponsored debate, scheduled for March 3.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on tonight's Fox News GOP debate.

With Donald Trump skipping the debate to consort with Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum (because he cares so very much about veterans), Ted Cruz had a golden opportunity to make a strong closing pitch to Iowa voters. He missed it.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with Associate Editor Ethan Epstein and Deputy Online Editor Jim Swift on whether Donald will show up at tomorrow's Fox News Debate in Iowa.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer John McCormack on last night's Fox Business debate, where Ted Cruz finally confronted Donald Trump.

The Charleston debate may have been more consequential than it looked at first glance. For starters, neither Jeb Bush nor John Kasich nor Ben Carson registered. (Except for Bush’s bizarre decision to make his most impassioned argument of the campaign in service of the rights of Muslim citizens from…

If tonight’s debate presented an opportunity for Jeb Bush, John Kasich, or Dr. Ben Carson to get back into the race, it hasn't worked out that way. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie all have presence tonight – an intensity and urgency that suggests they know they're in the…

The top Democrat running for president accused her Republican counterpart of being "ISIS's best recruiter." Hillary Clinton made the charge against Donald Trump in tonight's Democratic primary debate in New Hampshire:

Reporters are being put on the ice (rink) for tonight's Democratic party primary debate in New Hampshire.

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on Trump shouting his love of Vladimir Putin, and why the Democrats are hiding their debates with a consciously poor debate strategy.

With just over a month until the Iowa caucuses, the Republican nomination field is taking clearer form. Of the original 17 candidates, only 4 can be said to remain in top contention: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Ben Carson.

The Frank Luntz focus group, broadcast in part last night on Fox News, found that Chris Christie may have had a breakout night in Las Vegas:

The WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with editor William Kristol on tonight's CNN GOP Presidential Debate

Tuesday's Republican presidential debate in Las Vegas is the final GOP primary debate of 2015. With about a month and a half before the first primary contest—the Iowa caucuses on February 1—it's become clear the field of plausible contenders is much smaller than the 13 Republicans who will debate…

CNBC defends its performance at the last Republican debate by saying that candidates should be able to answer tough questions. Indeed they should. So, using the format of the CNBC questions to Republicans, here are some tough questions to ask Democrats at the next debate:

It wasn’t much of a debate.  This might have been because of the scheduling.  Everybody ought to have something better to do on Saturday night than argue over the correct level of the minimum wage.  Also, the atrocity in Paris hung over the proceedings, making the words of the candidates seem even…

The process of winnowing the Republican presidential field to a few candidates is beginning to take its toll, though the first actual voting won’t occur until February.

There were a few weird moments at the debate last night, but none was stranger than the crowd reaction when John Kasich and Jeb Bush were talking about immigration. Both were unapologetically pro-amnesty. Neither bothered to make concessions about how problematic the breakdown of the rule of law is…

Donald Trump says he helped out his Republican rival Jeb Bush at Tuesday night's debate in Milwaukee. In an interview with Morning Joe Wednesday, host Joe Scarborough asked the reality TV star how he could unify the GOP after saying harsh things about Bush and other Republicans.

During tonight's Republican presidential debate, Carly Fiorina went on an extended foreign policy riff:

It’s a rare debate where no one comes out feeling like they won. Some thoughts on how the field performed:

During Tuesday night's Republican presidential debate, Marco Rubio articulated his disagreements with increasing the minimum wage, and explained his alternative ideas. 

If you were just listening to Chris Christie’s answers Tuesday night, you might have thought he was debating Hillary Clinton. The Republican governor of New Jersey used his demotion to the undercard debate in Milwaukee to focus not on the other three low-polling Republicans on stage but instead on…

Going in, Chris Christie was the guy to watch at the undercard debate. He’s moving in New Hampshire, he handled his relegation with grit, and people are finally starting to see what a talent he is.

The Marco Rubio campaign is predicting the Florida senator will deliver a knockout punch to former Florida governor Jeb Bush in Tuesday night's debate, according to one reporter at the Fox Business Network. Charles Gasparino said he's hearing confidence from the Rubio camp.

Tonight’s debates on Fox Business should be notable for a number of reasons:

The super PAC supporting former Florida governor Jeb Bush for president told the New York Times that it plans on using its resources to hit Florida senator Marco Rubio over his pro-life record as well as missed votes in the Senate. The Times reported Tuesday that Right to Rise, which has raised…

Before it recedes entirely into the rearview mirror, it’s worth one last look at CNBC’s debate debacle (debatacle?) which was, as my buddy Michael Graham put it, a trainwreck into a dumpster fire.

The Republican candidates for president were remarkably unified in the (few) policy preferences they espoused at their debates on Wednesday night. All support cutting taxes and reducing regulation, and all oppose crony capitalism. The candidates may be remarkably diverse in terms of ethnicity and…

It probably isn’t true that CNBC asked the Republican candidates to wear a metal plate with a number around their necks and face the camera, no smiles allowed. But this was less a debate, with the otherwise able CNBC reporters and analysts teasing out the candidates’ views on economic issues, than…

Boulder, Colo.

Boulder, Colo.

Tonight’s debate showed that the GOP field is smaller than it looks. Technically, there are still fourteen people running, but the winnowing is far along. We probably have a final six and possibly a final four.

Boulder, Colo.

In a lot of ways, tonight’s Republican debate looks like the lowest-stakes of the three debates so far. We know what the candidates all look like in a debate setting; we know which lanes they're each slotted into. And while there will be ten candidates on stage, the field really isn't that big…

One of the most memorable moments from the first Democratic presidential debate was an unexpected one. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic-socialist senator from Vermont who is leading the polls in New Hampshire, took a question about the email scandal that has badly complicated Hillary Clinton’s…

Anderson Cooper’s final question in the Democratic presidential debate on October 13 led to an interesting and revealing moment. He asked:

On CNN's Reliable Sources, former Washington Post journalist (and Clinton biographer) Carl Bernstein weighed in on the Hillary Clinton email scandal:

During the debate in Las Vegas, CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Jim Webb how, if were he elected, “he would not be a third term for Obama.” Webb said that “there would be a major difference between my administration and the Obama administration,” and it would concern “the use of executive authority.”

Vice President Joe Biden praised the Democratic field after last night's primary debate in Las Vegas. 

Debates produce winners and losers. And CNN, known to some as the Clinton News Network, saw to it the biggest winner was the Democratic contenders as a group. Recall that when CNN staged a Republican debate, most of the questions were aimed at getting each candidate to attack the others, producing…

Going into tonight, the conventional wisdom was that Bernie Sanders would try to genially introduce himself, the candidates would mostly stay in their own lanes, and that Hillary was a bleeding target. Not so much.

Hillary Clinton doesn't think she's the only flip-flopper at Tuesday's debate stage. During the Democratic presidential debate, she said, "everyone on this debate stage has changed a position or two."

During Tuesday's Democratic presidential debate, Bernie Sanders resuced Hillary Clinton. "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails," Sanders said, standing up for Clinton.

The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee is calling her vice chair a liar. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is now denying that Tulsi Gabbard was not invited to tonight's Democratic debate -- instead, the chair is saying that her vice chair chose not to come.

I've been saying for the last few weeks that Hillary Clinton's campaign is in a window of danger. Tonight might be the moment of maximal peril.

Vice President Joe Biden will be at the White House tomorrow, the day of the first Democratic primary debate. The debate will be held across the country in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Just in case Vice President Joe Biden decides to enter the Democratic presidential race in the next day, CNN will be prepared. According to a CNN correspondent, the network hosting the first Democratic debate has a podium on hand for Biden.

Anticipating the big presidential debate on CNN, candidate Bernie Sanders is doing … well, not much of anything, to get ready.  Sanders, as Gabriel Debenedetti of Politico writes:

Last month, CNN hosted a Republican presidential primary debate. The main event was a 3-hour affair. 

Democratic National Committee vice chair Tulsi Gabbard went on MSNBC last night to call for her party to have more presidential primary debates:

We're two weeks from the first Democratic debate and to be honest with you, I can't tell right now if we are underestimating Hillary Clinton's weakness, or her strength.

A new CNN poll of the registered Republican and Republican-leaning voters finds Carly Fiorina taking second place in the GOP presidential primary, behind Donald Trump and just one point ahead of Ben Carson. The poll, taken over the course of the three days following CNN's September 16 debate, found…

Democrats want more debates. Today in New Hampshire, they're making sure DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz hears them. 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with editor William Kristol on the impact of Wednesday's GOP debate.

Did you see the CNN debate on Wednesday night? Neither did I. Oh, I watched a few highlights that seemed to be agitating social media—Carly Fiorina cutting Donald Trump down to size, for example—but like the Super Bowl, I contented myself with reading about it the next morning.

Republicans debated on the eve of Constitution Day, and did our founding document more justice than usual. The Republican debate on CNN was full of impressive performances by nearly all the candidates—and most who addressed the Constitution did so in a less clichéd way than they typically do. 

This was a debate I thought would never end. It lasted for three hours and seemed like longer. We even learned from each of the eleven Republican presidential candidates whose face should be on the $10 bill. No blood was spilled, metaphorically speaking. There were no losers.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with online editor Daniel Halper, wrapping up the CNN Republican Debate.

Senator Marco Rubio explained foreign policy in Russia and Syria concisely during Wednesday's Republican Debate. Putin is "trying to replace us as the single most important power broker in the Middle East and this president is allowing it." Watch the full clip here: 

As Jeb Bush and Donald Trump were arguing, Scott Walker interjected:

Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is "thrilled" the Republican debate is drowning out the Democratic primary. The DNC chair made the comments today on MSNBC:

Hillary Clinton is not so interested in debating her Democratic primary opponents, but her campaign wants voters to watch the Republican debate tonight on CNN.

It's fight night again and if the second GOP debate is anything like the first (no guarantees on that, by the way) then whatever happens tonight will shape the next several weeks of the race.

Democrats are protesting Democrats later today on Capitol Hill. A group calling for more Democratic presidential debates will gather outside the Democratic National Committee's headquarters to do demand more debates. 

Here’s what I’d like to hear from each of the Republican presidential candidates in tonight’s nationally televised debate:

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has written a letter to CNN president Jeff Zucker asking the news network donate the ad profits for next week's GOP presidential debate to veterans. Trump posted a photo of the letter to his Twitter account. See the tweet below:

When Donald Trump botched a question Thursday about General Qassem Suleimani, head of Iran’s Quds Force, it wasn’t the first time. He did the same thing last month during the Fox News debate, but his answer was largely overlooked in the post-debate hysteria over Trump’s answers to questions on a…

More than 200 elected officials, Republican and conservative activists, and business leaders have signed a letter to CNN president Jeff Zucker requesting the cable network award Carly Fiorina a spot in the upcoming Republican presidential primary debate. Fiorina campaign staff posted the letter on…

If this was meant to be entertainment, all 10 Flying Wallendas refused to walk the high wire, none of the clowns got out of the tiny car, and the elephants just stood around relieving themselves.

Needless to say, The Scrapbook is strictly neutral on the results of last week’s Republican presidential debate on Fox News. So neutral, in fact, that we won’t even mention any of the highlights—or lowlights, if you prefer—and certainly won’t weigh in on who swept the floor with whom, who…

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley wants his party to lean forward. In an interview this morning with ABC News, O'Malley said that Democrats "have to look to the future." And he wants his party to have more debates.

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley is still trying to expand the shrunken Democratic debate schedule. Today his campaign is collecting debate questions to be asked of all candidates.

On MSNBC's Morning Joe program this morning, Democratic presidential hopeful Martin O'Malley told Mika Brzezinski he'd like to see the number of Democratic debates tripled before votes are cast in the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Donald Trump is down nine points among Republican primary voters nationally, according to a post-debate poll from Rasmussen Reports. The real estate magnate and reality TV star still leads the crowded primary field, but with 17 percent support Trump is down nine points from Rasmussen's pre-debate…

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley said that it was "outrageous" the Democratic National Committee is limiting the number of primary debates. O'Malley also called it "undemocratic."

No one quite knows what the first Republican debate will look like, who exactly will be onstage, or what it means that Donald Trump will be there, too. This, it seems, is the Republican National Committee’s solution to the debacle of the 2012 debates. The problems are memorable: too many primary…

Carly Fiorina explained on Fox News Sunday this morning that the presidential "race has just gotten started." And she is ready to go:

Donald Trump called up CNN this evening to rip into Fox News host Megyn Kelly, a moderator at last night's Republican presidential debate. "[Y]ou could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever," Trump told CNN.

DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was confronted this morning on national TV about the Democrats' truncated debate schedule:

Last night’s debate in Cleveland won’t change the course of the Republican presidential race. But it’s likely to affect individual candidates and how they’re viewed. Some gained, some faltered, some were unaffected.

Cleveland 

If anyone believed Donald Trump would be any different in Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate, they were dead wrong. The Donald was his boastful, pugilistic, funny, and entertaining self, starting from the very first question of the night.

President Obama is responding to the Republican presidential debate by asking Democrats to give his party money. 

Best debate ever, right?

Carly Fiorina was the clear winner in a dull and relatively uneventful undercard debate Thursday evening. The former Hewlett Packard CEO was the most composed and effective of the seven candidates taking the stage in Cleveland, getting off a few memorable lines and detailed policy proposals.

It's too soon to make any solid predictions about which candidates will benefit from the early debate featuring the GOP candidates who didn't make the cut for the primetime debate later tonight. But based on some instant reactions, it appears that Carly Fiorina has been turning heads of viewers:

On Thursday, Sergio Gor, the communications director for presidential candidate Rand Paul, tweeted a picture of what appears to be another presidential candidate's closing statements that he says were left in the hotel printer:

Earlier today, a Twitter user with the handle @Ladysandersfarm questioned the Democratic National Committee chair's decision to limit the number of debates to six. 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with staff writer Jay Cost about Donald Trump's supporters.

Bill Hyers, a senior strategist in the Martin O'Malley presidential campaign, is calling the new Democratic debate schedule "less democratic."

Tonight is fight night and it could be the first inflection point we've seen in the race since June, when Donald Trump began his rise. In 2012 not every debate mattered, but the ones that did mattered a lot: Gingrich's rise came through the debates and Perry's collapse began not with his memory…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes in which he offers advice for Republicans ahead of Thursday night's Republican debate in Cleveland.

Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley is blasting his party for limiting the number of presidential debates. It's been reported that the Democrats are planning to hold only six debates in the entire primary.

Goffstown, N.H.

There’s been plenty of sound and fury over the Republican presidential primary debates. Who will make the 10-candidate cut? Who will get left out? Will Ohio’s governor John Kasich be shut out of the first debate, which is being held in his own state? What nutty thing(s) will Donald Trump say?

In this week's edition of the boss's email newsletter -- Kristol Clear -- readers are asked to rank their top three picks for the GOP's 2016 presidential nominee. The boss writes:

More than 50 Republican activists and officeholders in New Hampshire have signed an open letter to the heads of Fox News and the Republican National Committee to "urge" those leaders to "reconsider the criteria and to design a debate that will allow voters to hear from a more diverse and inclusive…

Last week, Fox News announced its guidelines for the first debate among presidential contenders endorsed by the Republican National Committee (RNC). The network plans to invite the top 10 candidates, with the ranking determined by an average of the five most recent national opinion polls before the…

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders proposed a debate between his wife and the spouse of his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in an interview today on MSNBC:

White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer said over the weekend that President Obama's entire State of the Union plan would "absolutely not" be passed by Congress. Now the Associated Press is saying that speech's goal is to influence the 2016 presidential election debate.

The American Enterprise Institute is hosting an event next week (January 12, at noon), titled, "A debate over executive power: Obama’s immigration decision."

Democratic senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire couldn't hold back at her debate with Republican challenger Scott Brown. While Brown was giving his closing remarks at a forum in Manchester Sunday, Shaheen interrupted him, eliciting boos from GOP partisans in the crowd.

Democratic Senate candidate Kay Hagan skipped tonight's debate in North Carolina. Here's video of the debate opening:

Congressman Tom Cotton, the Republican running for Senate in Arkansas, blasts his Democratic opponent, Mark Pryor, for refusing to debate foreign policy issue.

Last week the website for the Atlantic ran a highly instructive report about the extent to which the progressive worldview now dominates the university. The most recent conquest: college debate competitions.

Shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare, the CBO projected that 9 million people would buy Obamacare-compliant insurance through newly established government-run exchanges. Now, after an enrollment period that his administration expanded by about two months—to more than half a…

President Obama said yesterday:

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the recent budget fight  and how dragging out the debate about the Ryan-Murray budget deal hampers the ability of conservatives to press forward on the failures of Obamacare.

The boss went on national television this morning and said that Republicans should pass a bill that says, "If you like your current health care plan, you can keep it."

News reports from the final debate between Democrat Ed Markey and Republican Gabriel Gomez conclude that Gomez, a first-time candidate and self-styled "new kind of Republican," delivered a strong performance. With just days left in the campaign before the June 25 special election for Senate, Gomez…

Democratic senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut admitted this morning that "It took me a while to figure out" that belief in gun rights is based on a philosophy:

In a memo sent to fellow Republicans, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama outlines how he plans to change the terms of the budget debate with Democrats. The memo outlines how the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee plans to bring the fight directly to Democrats. 

Senate majority leader Harry Reid reiterated on Tuesday his plan to reform the rules of the Senate to weaken the filibuster and strengthen the majority party's power to move legislative debate forward. The Huffington Post reports:

Mitt Romney’s campaign can effectively be boiled down into two parts. One was his first debate appearance, during which he aggressively attacked President Obama’s abysmal record and vigorously explained and defended his own policy proposals. During the other part of his campaign — encompassing his…

In today's New York Times, Ross Douthat begins the debate, and, in my judgment, very much points in the right direction.

Joe Biden was forewarned. When he did a walk-through at the site of his debate with Paul Ryan, he asked if there might be double screens when the debate was broadcast. Yes, indeed, he was told, though it would be up to each TV network and cable channel whether to show both candidates at once on a…

Rasmussen Reports, the first polling outfit to release a survey from Ohio taken after the third and final presidential debate, shows that Mitt Romney has now pulled even with President Obama among the state’s likely voters — at 48 percent support apiece.  This is the first time since the summer…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol, hosted by Michael Graham:

After the debate last night, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said that Israel is "one of our strongest allies" in the Middle East:

During last night's debate, President Obama once again repeated the false claim that Governor Romney "wants to spend another $2 trillion on military spending that our military's not asking for."  And he's likely to repeat it in the days ahead.

Mitt Romney’s aim was to present himself with the demeanor and grasp of foreign and national security issues of a president of the United States. He succeeded. President Obama sought to make Romney appear unqualified to be president and commander in chief. He failed. And that was the story of the…

Fox News host Chris Wallace said Mitt Romney seemed like the president at tonight's presidential debate:

At tonight's presidential debate, Mitt Romney said that America's enemies looked at President Barack Obama and saw weakness:

Mitt Romney is more than holding his own with Barack Obama tonight. Only two other challengers have done as well debating foreign policy with an incumbent president—Ronald Reagan against Jimmy Carter in 1980 and, to a lesser degree, Bill Clinton against George H.W. Bush in 1992. Reagan and Clinton…

The New York Times corrects President Barack Obama: 

At tonight's presidential debate on foreign policy, Mitt Romney says that "after the election" Russian leader Vladimir Putin "will get more backbone":

The final presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney begins:

What to watch tonight?  There is the debate, of course, upon which hangs the fate of the nation if not the world.  That's important.  And, then, there is the seventh game of the National League playoffs, with the winner going to the World Series.  And, on Monday Night Football we have the Chicago…

In the first presidential debate of 2012, we saw, up close and personal, what Harvey Mansfield called in last week’s issue the ennui of Barack Obama. Obama’s ennui is related to his dislike for the real challenges of governing. More fundamentally, his ennui reflects his declinism. What’s exciting…

The boss with Shelby Steele, as well as host Peter Robinson, on this week's edition of Uncommon Knowledge:

On September 2, 1939, the day after Hitler invaded Poland, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made clear in the House of Commons that he still entertained hopes for negotiations with Hitler: “If the German Government should agree to withdraw their forces then His Majesty’s Government would be…

In their first polls conducted partly after the second presidential debate, both Gallup and Rasmussen Reports show that Mitt Romney has extended his lead over President Obama among likely voters.