CBS’s John Dickerson Answers the Time-Honored Question: Do Presidential Debates Matter?

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert went live after Tuesday’s presidential debate hosted by ABC News, and past debate moderator John Dickerson of CBS News was the guest.

Dickerson and host Stephen Colbert spoke for a few segments about the respective performances of Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump , with Dickerson saying that Harris was “relentless” in her “prosecution” of Trump. He also explained that Harris was able to use Trump’s own strategy of baiting his opponents against him, which derailed Trump to the point that he brought up the debunked claim that Haitian immigrants were eating the housepets of Springfield, Ohio.

But regardless of who won or lost the debate, Colbert asked Dickerson (at the 2:15 mark) if presidential debates still matter:

Colbert: This is the second presidential debate we’ve had in the last three months. Obviously, this is very different than the one that [President Joe Biden ] had with Trump in June. But that debate in June and this debate, do you think it has hammered home the idea, once again, the debates matter?

Dickerson: Yes, but these might have been idiosyncratic moments where you have a candidate who has troubles in his own party, and then you have candidate, who’s not so well-known and can change what people know about them in the debate. So, in general, it’s still probably true that the debates don’t matter so much. But in this one, you’ve got two that did matter. So, for the moment, it matters a lot. And I’m going to revise that the next debate we have, and if I need a new opinion, I’ll come up with one.

Colbert: And so while it matters, it matters. Until it doesn’t matter anymore.

Watch the video above via The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on YouTube .