Fox Hosts Slam ‘Lousy’ CNBC Debate, Question Moderators’ ‘Agenda’

The hosts of “Fox and Friends” on Thursday morning criticized the moderators of the CNBC Republican presidential debate, then gave Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) a chance to get “to the issues” by asking about Benghazi.

“It seems universal the big loser was CNBC. What kind of agenda did they have going, going into that debate with you guys last night?” co-host Steve Doocy asked Rubio on Thursday morning.

“I don’t think it’s atypical from what you see among most people in the mainstream media, which is privately they believe they’re smarter than the people running, and they can’t wait for their chance to show off in front of their buddies by asking some question they think is going to embarrass us, especially Republicans,” Rubio responded.

The senator said that the questions “were clearly designed to get us to fight against each other or to say something embarrassing about each other.”

Later in the interview, co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck again criticized the CNBC debate.

“Senator, we asked our viewers to send in questions, as the moderators did such a lousy job getting to the issues. We’re giving our viewers, though, a chance to get to the answers,” she said.

She then read a question from a viewer, “Had you been president the night of our consulate in Benghazi was attacked, what would you have done differently?”

“Well, first of all, if I had been president, that consulate would have been either not been open or would have been better secured because we knew that was a dangerous place,” Rubio responded, adding that if the consulate had been open, he would have had an extraction team and emergency crews nearby in case of attack.

Watch the “Fox and Friends” interview with Rubio below: