Shepard Smith vows to cut through the noise in his CNBC debut, offering a grim assessment of Trump's debate performance

TheWrap

The former Fox News anchor's The News with Shepard Smith opted for a cold open instead of a traditional open with its launch on Wednesday. “Good evening, I’m Shepard Smith, on CNBC, and this is The News," Smith said. "And right now, on a brand new newscast, we’d normally play the best sound and video from the debate, right? That’s the lead, the back-and-forth from the president and the man who wants to replace him, and then we show and tell you what else we face as a nation, because there’s a lot. That produced open — as we call it — about a minute, it’s fast, there’s music, it’s compelling and rich with emotion. And that was our plan. That’s what we’ll usually do. But as it turns out, in this moment, that’s just the noise. You’ve heard it, and we need to cut through it.”