At the top of the 9 a.m. ET hour on NBC’s Today, co-host Tamron Hall slammed the Republican presidential debate as being like a bad reality show: “...a friend of mine said it was like The Real Housewives with Andy Cohen, because they were just pitted against each other.”
Fellow co-host Natalie Morales chimed in: “Three hours is three hours too long.” Hall continued: “I did not think that that debate – and this has nothing to do with the network or anything – I mean, it’s the number of people, the length of time, it did not come off very presidential to me for, obviously, being the most serious election.”
Morales declared: “Yeah, came off a little high school. A lot of that, you know, the back and forth. And just the jabs were constant. It was more about who had the best jab rather than who had the best, you know, content in their answer. Who really knew their stuff.”
Here is a transcript of the September 17 exchange:
9:03 AM ET
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TAMRON HALL: There were too many people on that [stage]. It really did – and I won't quote a friend who said this – but a friend of mine said it was like The Real Housewives with Andy Cohen, because they were just pitted against each other. And the minute someone said anything about Chris Christie, “Chris Christie, here's your chance to respond.”
WILLIE GEIST: Right.
HALL: It was – the energy was not very-
NATALIE MORALES: Three hours is three hours too long.
HALL: You know, we hear people say, you know, that wasn't very presidential, or this person's behavior, I did not think that that debate – and this has nothing to do with the network or anything – I mean, it’s the number of people, the length of time, it did not come off very presidential to me for, obviously, being the most serious election.
MORALES: Yeah, came off a little high school. A lot of that, you know, the back and forth. And just the jabs were constant. It was more about who had the best jab rather than who had the best, you know, content in their answer. Who really knew their stuff.
GEIST: The other thing is that in a three-hour debate people would get lost for 30 minutes or 40 minutes. You’d say, “Are they still here?” Just because the sheer volume of people you have up there, it's hard to get everybody involved.
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