As CBS anchors Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan prepare for the vice-presidential debate on October 1, they have two models to choose from: CNN’s attempt to avoid "fact-checking" the candidates or ABC’s aggressively one-sided "fact-based" assault on the Republicans.
ABC’s immoderate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis uncorked the most flagrantly unfair and unbalanced debate in the history of modern presidential debates, going back to the Nixon-Kennedy debates of 1960. They don’t care that anyone objects to their strategic decision to join in debating former President Donald Trump, giving everyone the distinct impression that this was a three-on-one conversation.
Muir appeared on the Disney-syndicated chat show "Live with Kelly and Mark" and dismissed all criticism of ABC’s shoddy performance as "noise." He sounded like Jimmy Kimmel when he told Republicans he didn’t want them watching his late-night show. ABC isn’t here to please Republicans, only Democrats.
"All of the noise that you hear afterward about you know, ‘Which candidate won the debate, did the moderators win or lose?’" Muir said. "That's just noise. You all know that. The most important thing to remember is you all have the power."
Voters don’t have the power to tilt the election discussion in one direction. Conspiracy theories bubbled up from an alleged anonymous whistleblower about Vice President Kamala Harris getting questions in advance. ABC hired former Democratic Party chair Donna Brazile as a contributor, and in 2016, when she was a contributor at CNN, she sent Hillary Clinton’s campaign some topics for a town hall discussion in advance, and CNN let her go.
It could be enlightening to drag ABC before a congressional probe and ask how this incredibly biased debate was organized. But Harris didn’t need to have these questions in advance. Team Kamala could know there would be an inflation question, an immigration question, an abortion question, an Israel question, and maybe another mention of her flip-flop on fracking. There were no surprises, and the questions were vague enough that she repeatedly dodged a direct answer and uncorked her prepared speeches, and the moderators naturally allowed it.
Davis gave a revealing interview to the Los Angeles Times, explaining they didn’t want to be like CNN. "People were concerned that statements were allowed to just hang and not [be] disputed by the candidate Biden, at the time, or the moderators," she said. Those "people" are Democrats.
Davis told Times media reporter Stephen Battaglio that she had to turn off her social media accounts to shut out people who accuse her of pulling for Harris. "There is a stereotype that I am acutely aware of that I can't be unbiased covering this moment," she said. Then she went on the debate stage and proved it. Davis, like Muir, had no time for people charging her with blatant favoritism.
Davis also cited her mentor, ABC News veteran Carole Simpson, a woman of color best known for moderating a 1992 presidential debate where she sneered at President George H.W. Bush for calling himself the "education president." Simpson openly called Hillary Clinton’s election to the Senate in 2000 an "exhilarating moment" and in 2007, proclaimed it was time for Hillary to be elected the first woman president. That says a lot.
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So how did Team ABC decide to tilt toward only "fact-checking" Trump? Davis said she and Muir had studied hours of campaign rallies and interviews to prepare for the debate, so they were "ready to counter the candidates' most egregious statements." For example, she fully anticipated fighting back on Trump’s supposedly "erroneous" claim that the Democrats favor abortion at any time for any reason.
"That was an obvious thing to get on the record," Davis said. ABC’s partisans should have studied what Trump typically cites, that then-Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam said in a radio interview about keeping a baby that was born alive "comfortable" as they decided whether to kill it (or perhaps let it die unassisted). A state legislator had proposed a bill that she admitted would allow abortion up until birth.
They could have reviewed the 2020 Democratic Party platform, which proclaimed, "We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion … Democrats oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to reproductive health and rights."
They will fight to overturn barriers, with no exceptions. Liberal "fact-checkers" have attacked Trump and many other Republicans (like Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy) for "lying" about Democrats supporting abortion on demand, when the facts are there, in black and white. They claim Republicans are debunked because late-term abortions are "rare." That’s not a factual rebuttal.
On the Sunday after the debate, ABC "This Week" host Martha Raddatz, who has specialized in foreign policy, pushed a belated fact-check on Harris's claim that there were no American service members in war zones. "Our fact-checkers found that to be false," Raddatz told Gov. Maura Healey, D-Mass. "There are currently 900 U.S. military personnel in Syria, 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq. All have been under regular threat from drones and missiles for months. We also have action in the Red Sea. Also, every single day, the Navy SEALs, Delta Forces special operators can be part of any sort of deadly raid." Muir and Davis didn't prepare for that one.
Battaglio apparently had no questions about whether they studied Harris’s record for "fact-checks." They obviously needed no preparation on that front, since they never touched her. Let’s guess that shameless zero occurred because, on the left, any attempt to fact-check a Democrat opposing Trump is objectionable, because it suggests that a Democrat’s falsehoods might be made equivalent to Trump’s. Every anti-Trump journalist acts on the belief that any measure of neutrality is an atrocity.
