Exclusive: George Stephanopoulos Argues It’s ‘Journalistic Malpractice’ to Do a Live Interview With Trump

Mediaite editor in chief Aidan McLaughlin sat down for the latest episode of Mediaite’s Press Club with veteran political journalist George Stephanopoulos for an in-depth, wide-ranging interview on the state of American media and the 2024 presidential election.

During the interview, which will air as part of the first episode of Mediaite’s Press Club, a new weekly show on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel this Saturday at 10 a.m., McLaughlin turned the conversation to the unique challenges the media faces covering former President Donald Trump – a longstanding issue that most in the news business have yet to consider resolved.

“I have long felt that Trump’s superpower is a lack of shame, and you see it when you know when he’ll be up on a town hall stage or a debate stage, or in an interview with a reporter, and he’ll say two plus two equals five, and he’ll get fact-checked and we’ll just keep barreling through. Or, when there’s a controversy and he doesn’t apologize for it when any other politician in the history of politics would,” noted McLaughlin.

“That’s going to be a challenge for those who are doing the debate in June,” Stephanopoulos said. “I mean, I think it’s journalistic malpractice to do a live interview with President Trump on television.”

McLaughlin followed up, “It sounds like the debates are going to have no audience there, they’re allowed to cut the mics. What do you think of the parameters around the debate?”

“I think that helps a bit. I don’t know exactly how the mic thing is going to work. But I do think that those conditions help a bit. But it’s still a very, very complicated thing to do,” replied Stephanopoulos, adding:

One of the former president’s techniques is also simply to keep on changing the subject. I think that’s something that has always been perilous, a challenge for interviewers. But the same thing will happen in the debate. I, for one, don’t believe you can pretend that refusing to accept the 2020 election is on a par with other issues.

It’s as fundamental as it gets. Is that going to be put in the proper context in the debate? I think that’s one of the big questions.

McLaughlin followed up by asking if he thinks the networks hosting the debates — CNN and ABC — are going to be able to handle that context in an effective way, noting the 2020 debate moderated by Chris Wallace between Trump and Biden that went off the rails repeatedly, thanks to interruptions from Trump.

“I mean, that was the worst presidential debate in American history,” Stephanopoulos said. “It’s beyond any question. You know, I think CNN will be prepared. I think ABC will be prepared. But it’s completely uncharted waters. A lot will depend on the demeanor of both candidates, as well. But again, the touchstone is one I just said about how I do think that election issues around 2020 are far and away the most important issue, on another scale, to everything else. But the watchword should always be, are we doing something here which makes the abnormal seem normal? And that that should be the prism through which you should run all of your thoughts about covering the president and the debates.”

Watch the full interview with Stephanopoulos above, and listen to the full episode of Mediaite’s Press Club, featuring a conversation with Mediaite founding editor Colby Hall, on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel on Saturday at 10 a.m.