Second presidential debate moderator Steve Scully is under fire from conservatives for his teenage connection to Joe Biden

The Daily Beast

Sen. Ted Cruz and other conservatives have lashed out at C-SPAN's Scully's participation in the Oct. 15 debate because of his past work with Democratic senators, including Biden. "Forty-two years ago, when he was an 18-year-old communication and political science major at American University in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania-native Scully obtained an unpaid, college-credit internship with the office of first-term Republican Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania," reports The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove. "When that internship fell through, Scully—today a former president of the White House Correspondents Association and C-SPAN’s longtime senior executive producer and political editor—was assigned for six weeks, from September to October 1978, to the mailroom of Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. The following spring, when he was still 18, Scully answered phones at the front desk and worked as a lowly assistant in the press office—also unpaid and for college credit—of Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. Albeit long ago and far away, that scant resumé of civic-minded volunteerism has energized right-wing Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, scandal-ridden Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller, and many other Trump acolytes to question the now-60-year-old Scully’s ability to be fair and non-partisan when he referees the back and forth between President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger two weeks from now in Miami."