ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos admitted it’s highly unlikely that he’ll moderate one of President Joe Biden’s newly-announced 2024 presidential debates with presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, given how Trump is currently suing Stephanopoulos for defamation.
But Stephanopoulos told “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert on Wednesday that he’d definitely be up for the role. And the journalist earned a massive cheer from Colbert’s audience when he shared what his very first question to both candidates would be.
“Who won the last election?” Stephanopoulos said he would ask, adding: “I hope that’s the first question.”
Trump, of course, continues to baselessly claim the 2020 election was stolen from him.
Biden and Trump have agreed to debate each other in June and September.
Stephanopoulos called it an “interesting” and “bold move” from Biden and said “the rules he’s put in place could make a difference.”
“I love them,” Colbert said of the conditions. “No audience, in a studio and when your time’s up the mic goes off. That’s a loss of power.”
Stephanopoulos agreed but cautioned, “I wonder if at the end of the day, if those rules are really in place, if the debate really happens. But I think those rules are essential.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Stephanopoulos revealed his “new rule” when interviewing guests who parrot Trump’s election lies and refuse to say whether they’ll accept the result of the 2024 vote.
The “first questions I ask every single time,” he said, are: “Do you accept the last election? Why are you endorsing someone who refuses to accept the last election? Why are you endorsing someone who’s been indicted for trying to overturn the last election?”
“If they can’t answer those questions I’m not going to move on to tax policy or environmental policy or anything like that,” he told Colbert.
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