President Trump’s Friend Chris Ruddy Gives Debate Insight

CHRISTOPHER RUDDY, CEO, NEWSMAX: Christiane, great being on with you. I think I wasn’t really surprised by the president’s performance, and those people that know him. I mean, he’s sort of authentic to himself. I don’t think he would be surprised by my response, which was, I probably would have — I haven’t spoken to him since the debate — advised him to be a little more outreaching. The polls show there’s maybe 4 to 6 percent of the population, or the voting population, that’s undecided at this point. It’s a very small group. He probably needs to win about 65 percent of those folks to win this election. And I think, by being so combative, and even though he’s justified at points — Chris Wallace, I think, definitely sided with Biden. A lot of conservatives feel that way. But Joe Biden has had an exemplary career in public service. He was a vice president of the United States. I think some deference could have been shown, a little more deference on him. And you know what? The missed opportunity was, this president has a tremendous track record on so many issues. I could go through them all, but I’m not going to, but veterans and dealing with North Korea and Iran, the peace agreement that he did, all those foreign policy things, but also domestically, the best economy. A lot of that got lost in all the verbal combat.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Right. Well, yes, I mean, exactly. There was real verbal combat. You have heard Chris Wallace say that he felt it was a missed opportunity. He had never been through anything like that in his life. Interesting you say that conservatives thought he was pro-Biden or favored Biden more. I don’t think many people certainly on the other side thought, that he was trying very hard to be a moderator. And, of course, he’s from reliable FOX Trump country, which is FOX News.

RUDDY: I think there were times where Joe Biden was sort of floating off or wasn’t responding, and Chris threw a lifeline to him by moving quickly to Trump, moving the agenda back. I think there were some things there that — it’s widely perceived. But, look, this president could have done a lot better, I believe, I think he is a master communicator. I think he’s the greatest communicator we had, even greater than Reagan. Just, he single-handedly has really dominated the media cycle now for four or five years. He will continue to do so. So…

AMANPOUR: Well…

RUDDY: But I think this was a missed opportunity in terms of him telling his track record, which I think, at the end of the day, is what those independent voters — nobody’s — you don’t have to love Donald Trump. I don’t agree with everything he does. I don’t agree with every approach. I didn’t think every response he gave was appropriate. But I do think that he is the better president going forward for the future of the country.