This is extremely tacky and contemptible for big business, and deserving of mockery and condemnation.
Why?
I think debates themselves are undeniably tacit and the campaign process as a whole deserving of mockery. If you wanna argue the stakes are serious, well, then why are we deciding on the basis of a few hours of dueling soundbites? We can’t be very serious about it. So what’s a little frivolity on top of the unseriousness?
tacit = tacky