| Hi Rulers! Hope you've all had a good week! I've got a Q&A for you today — send any feedback and/or ideas for this newsletter to sgardner@politico.com. On Wednesday, the GOP primary candidates will gather in Milwaukee for the first primary debate of the 2024 presidential election. The event will be mostly dominated by men, as Nikki Haley is the only female candidate. But a woman will be directing the conversation – at least partially. Fox News journalist Martha MacCallum will co-moderate the debate with her colleague, Bret Baier. It’s not MacCallum’s first time moderating a presidential primary debate. In August 2015, she helmed what was nicknamed “the kids table” debate, an hour-long event before the real debate, which featured GOP primary candidates who failed to meet the polling requirement. This time around, she’ll have a lot more eyes on her– especially with the ambiguity over whether former President Donald Trump will make an appearance. I spoke with MacCallum about how she plans to steer the at times unruly field of candidates in a productive direction. Here’s our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity. Gardner: What's going on in your head right now with the debate coming up so soon? MacCallum: There's a lot of questions that are in the mix right now. We have every-other-day-ish meetings where we put our thoughts together. We've got a file that has our questions in it, and we kick the tires and see if we still like those questions two days later, and inevitably, we're adding new material. And we're doing research to back up what we're asking and figure out what the what these candidates have said about these topics in the past so that we have a good background on how to hold them to their prior statements on these issues. It's a very evolving process. Gardner: It's a very male field right now. Do you think it's important to have a woman asking the questions and helping direct the flow of conversation? MacCallum: You know, my theory on that is that it's all based on merit. The experience that I have puts me in this position on Wednesday night. I think it's always important to have different voices in the mix. I think it's great that the former governor and ambassador Nikki Haley is part of the mix. It doesn't surprise me that women are on the stage both as moderators and as candidates. I imagine that you're going to see more women in these positions, as we go forward. But I just always believe that people get into the positions they get into based on their merit and not based on their gender. Gardner: One of the topics I often cover in this newsletter is abortion. Some of the candidates have struggled to give specific policy stances on the issue. Are you planning to ask questions about that? And are you going to press for a specific policy stance? MacCallum: It's obviously a very big issue. And I think that Republicans, many of them ignored it, at their peril, in the midterms in 2022 and had a big wake-up call after that election where they thought they were going to win all these seats. They woke up to discover that there were a lot of voters, especially younger voters, who felt very strongly about this, and independent voters that they lost. And I do think that one of the biggest constituencies that matters in this election is suburban women, and that is an issue that is very significant for them. We will absolutely make sure that people have the opportunity to let everyone know where they stand on this issue, whatever side of it they are on. I think it's really important for all candidates, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, to articulate where they stand on it very clearly. They'll absolutely have that opportunity. Gardner: You previously called the lack of evidence backing up Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen “stunning.” Obviously, we don't know yet if Trump will be attending, but if he or anyone else perpetrates that false claim, do you plan to do any fact-checking during the debate? MacCallum: Of course. That's something we do on a daily basis on our shows, and in every interview, you always have to bring people back to the facts as they exist and challenge them. That being said, people have a right to say what their own beliefs are on these issues. But as a journalist, your job is to make sure that you keep things focused and that you hold people to the facts as they exist, and you allow them to make their arguments. Gardner: Trump has been dominating this primary in the polls, but also dominating the conversation among other candidates. Whether he attends or not, how do you plan to keep him as only part of the conversation, instead of letting him become the entire debate — especially with the news of his recent indictments? MacCallum: Obviously, there's a place for [discussing the indictments]. It's a huge story and the former president has made his feelings known. He's going to be speaking out on it again on Monday morning. And if he's on stage, we will absolutely ask him questions about the indictments, and I'm sure he would want to address it and respond to it. That being said, what we hear when we travel around the country and talk to voters is that there are things that they care more about than that in many cases. We want to make sure that we find that balance of addressing a very important issue right now in the country, but at the same time, it doesn't really impact people's lives as much as the economy or abortion, or how people feel about the financial commitment on the part of United States to the war in Ukraine, the future, the tenor in the country, patriotism. All those issues are things that I think are more important to people's daily lives and certainly more important in that they look toward the future. Finding that balance is definitely part of my responsibility.
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