ABC presidential debate co-moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis fact-checked former President Trump five times. 90 minute hot program And on Tuesday evening, he failed to correct Vice President Kamala Harris even once.
In addition to the unbalanced number of fact-checks, many pundits said Trump received far more challenging questions and that ABC’s moderators mostly ignored Harris on several issues. But the unbalanced fact-checks drew attention from critics of the Disney-owned network.
Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer posted, “ABC is making a huge mistake trying to fact-check this live broadcast. They’re only proving how biased they are.” Social media,
ABC presidential debate co-moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis fact-checked former President Trump four times during the 90-minute program, and didn’t correct Vice President Kamala Harris once on Tuesday evening. (ABC News)
Here are fact-checks from the ABC presidential debate obtained by the National Constitution Center:
Fact-checking on Trump
1. Miscarriage
When Trump was asked about his stance on abortion, ABC’s Davis reported that the former president has bragged about it. The killing of Roe v. Wade and has called himself “the most pro-life president in American history,” but has since declared that he would be great for women’s reproductive rights. Trump also recently said that Florida’s six-week abortion ban is “too short-lived,” but said he would vote against a ballot initiative that would end the state’s six-week ban on abortion.
“I’m voting for it because… abortion is allowed there in the ninth month. They even did that, and you look at the governor of West Virginia, the previous governor… not the current governor, who’s doing a wonderful job, but the governor before him said, ‘The baby will be born, and we’ll decide what to do with the baby,’ in other words we’ll kill the baby. And that’s why I did it,” Trump said.
Davis surprised people with his first fact-check of the evening.
“There’s no state in this country where it’s legal to kill a baby after birth,” Davis said.
2. Pets
Trump said illegal immigrants are eating people’s pets
“In Springfield, they’re eating dogs. People who have come in there are eating cats. They’re eating the pets of the people who live there. And that’s what’s happening in our country. And it’s shameful,” Trump said.
Muir responded, “I want to be clear here, you raised the case of Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News contacted the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of harm, injury or abuse of pets by people in the immigrant community.”
Trump said he saw it on television, but the ABC anchor didn’t like it.
Trump responded, “There are people on television saying my dog was taken and used for food. So maybe that’s what he said and maybe that’s a good thing for a city manager to say.”
“I’m not getting this information from television. I’m getting this information from the city manager,” Muir said.
“But there’s people on television saying the people who went there ate his dog,” Trump said.
Muir responded, “Again, the Springfield city manager says there’s no evidence of this.”
Fox News Media proposes second Harris-Trump debate moderated by Martha MacCallum, Bret Baier
Former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. (Screenshot: ABC News Presidential Debate broadcast on Fox News)
3. Crime
At one point, Trump said, “Crime is at an all-time high in this country,” but Muir immediately objected.
The ABC anchor responded, “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says that overall violent crime is declining in this country.”
Trump responded, “The FBI – they were making fraudulent statements. They didn’t include the worst cities. They didn’t include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud. Just like they said they created 818,000 jobs, but those turned out to be fraudulent, too.”
4. Sarcasm
Trump said he was being sarcastic when he recently said he lost the 2020 election to President Biden.
“I said it sarcastically. You know. It was said, ‘Oh we lost by a small margin.’ It was said sarcastically. Look, there’s a lot of evidence. You just have to look at it. And they should have sent it back to the legislatures for approval. I got almost 75 million votes. The most votes any incumbent president has ever received. I was told if I get 63 votes, which I got in 2016, you can’t be defeated.”
Muir responded, “I’ve seen all of these videos. I don’t see any satire in them.”
Muir then told the audience that judges have said “there was no widespread fraud” and immediately asked Harris if she thought Trump was trying to intimidate voters by claiming he would prosecute anyone who helped commit election fraud.
5. Pelosi
There were other moments that weren’t outright fact-checks but were seen as hostile moments against Trump, such as when Trump mentioned Pelosi by name while answering, to which Muir said the question wasn’t about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Trump said, “I went to give a speech. I said, I think this is going to be a big event. I went to Nancy Pelosi and the mayor of Washington DC and the mayor gave it back in writing. I said, ‘You know, this is going to be a very big rally or whatever you want to call it.’ And again, this wasn’t done by me. This was done by others. I said I want to give you 10,000 National Guard or troops. They rejected me. Nancy Pelosi rejected me.”
“This would never have happened if Nancy Pelosi and the mayor of Washington had done their job. I was not responsible for security,” he said. “Nancy Pelosi was responsible. She didn’t do her job.”
Muir responded, “The question was about you being president, not about former Speaker Pelosi.”
ABC debate moderators lash out at aggressive fact-checking of Trump and soft treatment of Harris
Fact-checking on Harris
No one was there.
Several pointed out that Muir and Davis failed to correct Harris’ statement that Trump once said there were “very fine people” on both sides of the “Unite the Right” rally held in Charlottesville in 2017.
Trump’s critics have claimed for years that he called neo-Nazis “very fine people” when in fact he was talking about people protesting against the statue of Robert E. Lee, and President Biden and his allies in the mainstream media have regularly pushed this notion.
But earlier this year, left-wing fact-checking website Snopes acknowledged that Trump had never called neo-Nazis “very fine people” during his press conference following the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally in 2017.
“At a news conference after a rally against the planned removal of a Confederate statue, Trump said there are ‘very fine people on both sides,’ referring to protesters and counter-protesters. He added in the same statement that he was not talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, who he said should be ‘fully condemned,’” Snopes wrote,
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Trump assisted ABC moderators in telling viewers that Harris’ claims had been “debunked.”
Harris said we need to stop insulting people and minutes later she called Trump “deplorable,” but ABC’s moderators failed to point that out. Harris also linked Trump to Project 2025, but the moderators failed to point out that Trump has completely distanced himself from the polarizing plan.
Harris also dismissed Trump’s “bloodshed” comment and Trump’s stance on IVF as inaccurate without scrutiny, and ABC’s moderators failed to question Harris about either. Gun restrictions and mandatory buybacks And no active military forces were in the combat zone.
