Moderator Holt largely stays out of the fray

NBC News anchor Lester Holt took a largely passive role Monday as the moderator of the first presidential debate of 2016, staying in the background as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump traded verbal blows on the economy, race relations and national security.

Holt irregularly asked follow-up questions and declined to intervene as Trump interrupted Clinton and made a series of questionable assertions.

From the start, Holt’s role was itself under debate. Clinton’s camp urged him to call out any inaccurate or false statements by Trump as they occurred during the debate. Trump argued that such an approach would interrupt the proceedings and introduce potential bias. He has advocated doing away with the moderator altogether.

Several times, Holt asked both candidates to answer the same question in turn, a strategy that seemed designed to create an even chance for the two rivals. He began by asking both, “Why are you a better choice than your opponent at creating jobs that will put more money in workers’ pockets?”

Holt may have been mindful that posing different sets of questions to the candidates could foster the sort of criticism that dogged his NBC colleague, Matt Lauer, after his moderation of recent town-hall interviews. Lauer devoted a significant part of his interview with Clinton to her deleted emails but ignored a number of controversies in questioning Trump, drawing outrage from Clinton’s supporters.