DC’s local Fox station let a right-wing pundit promote himself as a moderator for a canceled congressional debate

Right-wing columnist and radio host Larry O’Connor had been in line to moderate a debate between Rep. Abigail Spanberger and Republican candidate Yesli Vega

Written by Eric Kleefeld

Published

During an interview with Fox 5 DC, a corporate-owned Fox News station, right-wing radio host Larry O’Connor bemoaned that he had been prevented from moderating a congressional debate in a hotly-contested Virginia race, even though he has a history of openly partisan and extreme commentary, including promoting the district’s current Republican nominee.

The campaign of incumbent Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) objected to O’Connor’s invitation to moderate the debate later this week, which ultimately led to the debate’s cancellation. In outlining the Spanberger campaign’s objection to O’Connor, The Washington Post reported Monday that the proposed moderator had not simply hosted Republican nominee Yesli Vega for friendly interviews on his radio show, but that he “has referred listeners to Vega’s website to make donations or purchase merchandise.” In addition, Spanberger’s campaign pointed to his columns at the right-wing website Townhall which have explicitly called for the defeat of Democrats.

O’Connor is a former editor at the far-right website Breitbart, has writtenly mockingly of anti-rape protests and the Me Too movement, has compared 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to Karl Marx, and later urged then-President Donald Trump to use the FBI and DOJ to drag Clinton through sham investigations.

O’Connor appeared Wednesday morning on the local Fox-owned station in Washington, D.C., where he regularly appears, to discuss the controversy created by his proposed participation as a debate moderator. “I mean, you guys know me, I’m a lovable teddy bear,” O’Connor said in a somewhat jocular tone, and further claimed that he had been “excited and prepared to ask some tough questions of both the candidates.”

During the interview, O’Connor fired back against accusations by Spanberger’s campaign that he coordinated with Vega’s campaign to place him in the debate moderator’s chair, insisting that the debate organizers were the only people who had reached out to him in this matter. However, he also admitted to having reached out to Vega's campaign team “over a week ago” hoping to book the candidate to appear on his newly-launched TV program with Salem News Channel. (O’Connor alleged that the Vega campaign didn’t respond to his request.)

From the October 19, 2022, edition of WTTG’s Fox 5 Morning

O’Connor also argued during this interview, “It was going to be co-moderators, right? So, you got two different reporters with two different perspectives.” (He then corrected himself by adding, “I’m not a reporter. I’m a broadcaster. But everyone knows where I stand politically.”)

As the Post reported, the proposed co-moderating duo would have been composed of one mainstream media source, PBS NewsHour correspondent Lisa Desjardins, paired with O’Connor as a partisan conservative.