You weren’t the only one who wanted to throw a remote at the TV during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate. Rachel Maddow was also fed up with the candidates’ compulsion to talk over each other.
“A lot of the time, I think those of us watching on television had no idea what was being said because not only were both men speaking over one another, the moderator was speaking over both of the candidates, and nobody was yielding to anybody else,” the MSNBC host said after the debate. “So there were long stretches of time when there were three voices at once and I don’t think you could pick out any intelligible words from any of them.”
Maddow agreed with her co-host Brian Williams that the debate between Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) was contentious, but she added that it was “at times, incomprehensible,” particularly in the first 15 minutes.
“It doesn’t reflect well on any of the people involved,” she said.
The moderator, CBS News’ Elaine Quijano, had to interject at one point to stop the squabbling. “Gentlemen, the people at home cannot understand either one of you when you talk over each other,” she said.
Many news outlets picked up on the potential veeps’ bickering, with analysis from FiveThirtyEight finding that Kaine interjected and interrupted his opponent more often.
Many debate watchers were also unimpressed with all the squabbling:
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