 "Trump-Harris presidential debate: Was ABC News biased toward the vice president?")
Kamala Harris cleaned Donald Trump’s clock.
That was pretty much the consensus on their presidential debate this week – even on the right-wing channel Fox News and among some of the former president’s most ardent defenders including Senator Lindsey Graham and Republican strategist Erik Erikson.
Trump, though, immediately afterwards in the ‘spin room’ with the press, insisted he had his ‘best debate ever.’
He also claimed to have seen some polls showing he had easily defeated Harris, though he did not answer the press’ questions about which specific polls he was citing.
Trump, confusingly, also called the debate ‘rigged,’ said the two debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis ganged up on him alongside Harris and also demanded that ABC lose its broadcasting license – a strange stance to take for someone who claims he won the debate.
“It was a rigged deal, as I assumed it would be. Because when you looked at the fact that they were correcting everything and not correcting with her, and we knew it when it was 100 percent good coverage for her over the last month or last year, I looked at it and only bad coverage of me,” Trump said.
Trump also later claimed that Harris somehow got hold of the questions of the debate in advance – which of course would be against the rules.
“They had a rigged show with somebody that maybe even had the answers. I mean, I’ll be honest. I watched her talk, and I said, you know, she seems awfully familiar with the questions, and you get pretty good at that stuff after a while,” Trump said on Fox News on Wednesday.
Trump isn’t alone. A number of other right-wing personalities and TV hosts accused ABC News of bias.
But which personalities have done so? What are they saying? And did ABC News swing the debate in Harris’ favour?
Let’s take a closer look:
Which personalities are claiming ABC was biased against Trump?
Mostly it was the usual suspects on Fox News.
Sean Hannity, the cheerleader-in-chief when Trump was in office, called the debate moderators’ performance “the most overt, sickening display of left-wing bias during a presidential debate.”
He also claimed ABC News was the biggest loser in the debate.
“ABC-Disney, they want Kamala Harris to be elected. That was very clear last night. In fact, last night was little more than a campaign contribution by ABC-Disney, masquerading as a news division, which they are not, all while supporting the Harris campaign,” Hannity said.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham, perhaps the second biggest Trump booster on the network, didn’t go quite as far.
“Did Donald Trump miss a few opportunities? Absolutely,” she was quoted as saying by the Daily Beast.
“ABC did help Kamala Harris,” she added.
Kayleigh McEnany, who worked in the Trump administration, claimed the debate was hosted by ‘left-wing activists.’
Her proof? That Muir and Davis fact-checked Trump repeatedly, while not doing so for Harris.
Conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly wrote on X, “Must be so nice to have the moderators running cover for you as a candidate. Makes it so much easier.”
“These moderators are a disgraceful failure and this is one of the most biased, unfair debates I have ever seen,” she later added. “Shame on you @ABC.”
“It is laughable how ABC choreographed this to help VP Harris but it isn’t working because it is so obvious,” conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt also wrote on X.
“David Muir is criticising and attacking Trump more than Kamala is,” Glenn Greenwald wrote on X. “Kamala can relax because the ABC ‘moderators’ are handling the debate for her.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Trump opponent turned friend, accused Muir of “setting [Harris] up with softball questions,” as per The Independent.
Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under George W Bush, wrote on X, “ABC is making a huge mistake trying to fact check this live. They’re only proving how biased they are. Harris fabricated an attack on Trump over IVF. ABC sat there and said nothing.”
Some in the MAGA-sphere are now pushing a conspiracy theory that Harris got the questions in advance and that her team was assured Trump would be fact-checked during the debate.
Their proof?
A self-proclaimed MAGA supporter claiming to be in the possession of an affidavit saying so from an ABC whistleblower.
“I will be releasing an affidavit from an ABC whistleblower regarding the debate. I have just signed a non-disclosure agreement with the attorney of the whistleblower. The affidavit states how the Harris campaign was given sample question which were essentially the same questions that were given during the debate and separate assurances of fact checking Donald Trump and that she would NOT be fact checked,” this person wrote on X.
Though some conservative accounts have boosted this claim on X, they are yet to offer any concrete proof.
This comes after some on the right claimed that Harris was wearing earphones disguised as pearl earrings and that her staff was feeding her answers to policy questions in real time.
Did ABC News favour Harris?
Only if you believe the act of fact-checking Trump is inherently unfair.
Muir and Davis in fact repeatedly did so – particularly on the topic of abortion and the claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating pets.
“In Springfield, they are eating the dogs. The people that came in, they are eating the cats. They’re eating – they are eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump claimed.
To which Muir responded, “I just want to clarify here, you bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Trump, on the subject of abortion, railed, “You can look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor of West Virginia, not the current governor, who is doing an excellent job, but the governor before he said, the baby will be born and we will decide what to do with the baby.”
“In other words, will execute the baby,” he claimed.
“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” Davis responded in a firm tone.
Much of the Republicans’ outrage after the debate is calculated – it is what in American sports parlance is known as ‘working the refs.’
This refers to teams, particularly the losing ones, putting pressure on those officiating the games – who are supposed to stay impartial – in hopes of getting the close calls to go their way in the future.
But not everyone in the right-wing is playing the game.
Graham, a Trump booster, called his performance a disaster.
Trump, speaking on The Bulwak Podcast, said the ex-president was unprepared and that his debate team should be sacked.
Trump, though, doesn’t look like he wants a rematch with Harris anytime soon.
“I don’t know that I want to do another debate,” Trump said.
Though he did say he would be amenable to it if Hannity, Ingraham or Jesse Waters – not exactly impartial observers themselves – would agree to host.
With inputs from agencies
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