Vice President Kamala Harris and war hawk former congresswoman Liz Cheney made a play for women in a “blue wall” town hall last night, joining forces to denounce former President Donald Trump as an existential threat to democracy. But when a member of the audience tried to rise and ask questions of their own, the moderator cut them off, saying “some predetermined questions” were all the crowd would be hearing Monday night.

Maria Shriver, the former First Lady of California under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, spent most of the night helping Harris and Cheney stage an artificial town hall that turned out to be not much more than a scripted campaign stop in Detroit, Michigan more befitting of a daytime talk show. Cheney answered questions from Shriver about President Trump’s foreign policy while Harris continued her familiar pitch to women about the Republican’s threat to reproductive freedoms. The Harris campaign described the event in Michigan as “a moderated discussion,” according to the New York Times, which was driven home when one member of the audience raised her hand and asked Shriver if she would be allowed to ask her own question.

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“You’re not, unfortunately. We have some pre… uh, determined questions and hopefully I’ll be be able to ask some of the questions that might be in your head. I hope so,” Shriver replied. On X, the Trump campaign’s rapid response account flagged the accidental admission, writing, “The host admits the audience can’t actually ask questions at Kamala’s fake ‘town hall’ with Loser War Hawk Liz Cheney because the questions are ‘pre-determined.'”

WATCH:

🚨 The host admits the audience can't actually ask questions at Kamala's fake "town hall" with Loser War Hawk Liz Cheney because the questions are "pre-determined" pic.twitter.com/kccAaN1D5M

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 21, 2024

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and a vocal supporter of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, cast Trump in the terms of a volatile dictator who would destabilize the global order. “For anybody who is a Republican who is thinking that, you know, they might vote for Donald Trump because of national security policy, I ask you, please, please study his national security policy,” Ms. Cheney said, according to the New York Times. “Not only is it not Republican, it’s dangerous.” Prompted by Shriver to respond to Harris’s slogan, “A new way forward,” the former Republican lawmaker appealed to patriotism and asked conservatives to prioritize country over party.

“If people are uncertain, if people are thinking, ‘Well, you know, I’m a conservative, I don’t know that I can support Vice President Harris,’ I would say, ‘I don’t know if anybody is more conservative than I am,’” Cheney said, earning a laugh from Harris. “I understand the most conservative value there is: to defend the Constitution.”

Even the Times couldn’t help but describe the town halls as being closer to an “episode of Oprah Winfrey’s old show” given the scripted format. For President Trump, it was more important to note the substance of what both women said versus the style of their appearance. In a direct appeal to Arab American voters, a critical Michigan voting bloc, the former president blamed Cheney for the destruction wrought across the Middle East for decades. “Arab Voters are very upset that Comrade Kamala Harris, the Worst Vice President in the History of the United States and a Low IQ individual, is campaigning with ‘dumb as a rock’ War Hawk, Liz Cheney, who, like her father, the man that pushed Bush to ridiculously go to War in the Middle East, also wants to go to War with every Muslim Country known to mankind,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

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