Chatter Increases For Talk Radio GOP Debate

After the CNBC debate, Presidential Candidate Sen. Ted Cruz proposed a talk radio debate moderated by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin. On Monday’s inaugural Breitbart News Daily on Sirius XM Patriot channel 125 (6AM to 9AM ET), Levin told host and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon that he would be open to moderating a potential GOP debate.

Jeffrey Lord

In a Newsbusters piece over the weekend, Conservative commentator and American Spectator contributor Jeffrey Lord proposed that the talk radio debate occur on February 26, 2016, which was when the NBC/Telemundo debate was supposed to take place. After the October 28 CNBC debate, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus suspended the RNC’s ties with NBC, leaving open that slot.

“What conservative would not love to hear Mark Levin grill these candidates on the Constitution or an Article Five convention? To hear Rush pin down a Kasich or Christie on how they have used conservative principles — or not — to govern Ohio and New Jersey? To have Sean go back and forth with Sen. Rand Paul or Sen. Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz about the Boehner budget deal and just why it is that the base of the GOP feels betrayed by their leadership? The details could be worked out,” Lord wrote. “But the concept should be agreed to quickly. It’s time. More than past time to have Republican candidates on stage not with a bunch of CNBC-style liberals determined to paint them in the worst possible life. It’s more than past time to have potential Republican candidates answer questions from some of the most notable conservative stars in the conservative universe.”

Lord also wrote over the weekend that “no one who is a serious conservative thinks a Limbaugh/Levin/Hannity debate would be a walk in a park for GOP candidates.”

“Contrary to the liberal caricature of conservative talk radio, these are deeply serious people, well read in conservative thought and more than qualified to question candidates on issues from a conservative point of view,” he wrote.

Conservative questioners would be tougher on Republicans than left-leaning mainstream media hosts are on Democrats. Even Sean Spicer, the RNC’s chief strategist, has said that conservative outlets are tougher on establishment Republicans than the mainstream press.