Fox News anchor Bret Baier will moderate a speakership wrestling match between Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise on Monday night, Punchbowl News reports. The debate will not actually be televised and it’s only for Republican House members and staff which… Christ, this is so freaking stupid.

Like how fucking Fox News-brained do you need to be to call one of their guys in to moderate a non-public debate? Now sure, from a distance you can see how it’s obviously beneficial for Baier because it’s an access thing and he can report exclusively on it afterward. Fox would no doubt prefer to have live cameras in the room when this is happening, though this is definitely still worth it for them. As much as we mock Fox News here we do not at all question the call on their end.

The House GOP though… This speaks so much to their mindset, that in a closed forum with only their own side in the audience they still need to act like they’re on TV to the point where they literally bring in a guy who moderates televised debates. It’s easy to imagine that – on top of viewers not actually having a direct say in the outcome – a big part of the reason why this isn’t on TV is because there’s going to be too much inside baseball shit and arcane parliamentary issues that most of the audience would just doze off for. If that’s the case then what makes them think Baier is going to be fluent enough in those topics to ask the right questions? And if they’re just going to feed him the questions then what’s the goddamned point of having him there? This shit is just bizarre.