ABC's shameless argument couldn't even survive its own fact-checking

As CBS hosts Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan prepare for the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate, they have two options: CNN's attempt to avoid “fact-checking” the candidates, or ABC's one-sided “fact-based” attack on the Republican Party.

ABC's unprincipled hosts, David Muir and Lindsay Davis, conducted the most blatantly unfair and unbalanced debate in the history of modern presidential debates dating back to the Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960. They didn't care if anyone disagreed with their strategic decision to debate former President Donald Trump, and everyone was under the impression that this was a three-on-one conversation.

Muir appeared on the Disney-affiliated talk show “Live with Kelly and Mark” and dismissed the criticism of ABC's poor performance as “noise.” He sounded like Jimmy Kimmel when he said he didn't want Republicans to watch late-night shows: ABC doesn't exist to please Republicans, it exists to please Democrats.

Republican senators demand ABC News turn over Harris debate communications, calling it 'biased agenda'

“You know the noise that you hear after the debates: 'Which candidate won the debate, did the moderator win or lose?'” Muir said. “It's just noise, and you know it. The most important thing to remember is that you have power.”

Voters have no power to tilt election debates in one direction. Conspiracy theories have emerged from an anonymous, purported whistleblower that Vice President Kamala Harris was asked questions in advance. ABC hired former Democratic Party chair Donna Brazile as a contributor and sent town hall debate topics in advance to the Hillary Clinton campaign when she was a CNN contributor in 2016, after CNN fired her.

It might be enlightening to drag ABC to a congressional investigation and ask how this highly biased debate was organized. But Harris didn't need to know these questions in advance. The Kamala campaign knew there would be another mention of her sudden shift in stance on inflation, immigration, abortion, Israel and possibly fracking. There were no surprises, and the questions were vague, so Harris repeatedly avoided direct answers, reeling off prepared speeches, which the moderator naturally allowed her to do.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Davis said he didn't want to end up like CNN: “People were concerned that comments would be tossed out and not challenged by then-candidate Biden or the hosts,” he said, referring to “people” who were Democrats.

Davis told Times reporter Steven Battaglio that she had to shut down her social media accounts to block people who accused her of rooting for Harris. “I'm painfully aware that there's a stereotype that we can't cover this moment fairly,” she said. And she took to the debate stage to prove it. Like Muir, Davis had no intention of wasting time on those who accused her of blatant favoritism.

Davis also cited her mentor, veteran ABC News reporter Carol Simpson, a woman of color who moderated the 1992 presidential debate and is best known for ridiculing President George H.W. Bush for calling himself the “education president.” Simpson publicly declared 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's saying a lot.

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So why did the ABC team decide to lean solely into “fact-checking” Trump? Davis said she and Muir had spent hours studying rallies and interviews in preparation for the debate, and were “prepared to refute the candidates' most egregious statements.” For example, she fully expected to push back against Trump's “false” assertion that Democrats support abortion at any time and for any reason.

“That was something that should have been on the record,” Davis said. ABC's supporters should have studied a Trump-quoted radio interview in which then-Virginia Governor Ralph Northam said babies should be “comfortable” when deciding whether to kill them (or let them die unassisted) shortly after birth. A state legislator had introduced a bill that would have allowed abortions up to birth.

They could have revisited the 2020 Democratic platform, which declared, “We unequivocally believe that all women, like the vast majority of Americans, should have access to quality reproductive health services, including safe and legal abortion…Democrats will oppose and fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to reproductive health and rights.”

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Davis said he didn't want to end up like CNN: “People were concerned that comments would be tossed out and not challenged by then-candidate Biden or the hosts,” he said, referring to “people” who were Democrats.

They will fight to overturn the barriers, without exception. Liberal “fact checkers” have attacked Trump and many other Republicans (such as Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy) for “lying” that Democrats support abortion on demand, when the facts are clear and black. They claim that the Republican lie is exposed because late-term abortions are “rare.” This is not a fact-based rebuttal.

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The Sunday after the debate, ABC's “This Week” host Martha Raddatz, a foreign policy expert, pressed for a belated fact-check of Harris' claim that there are no U.S. troops in the field. “We've fact-checked that and it turns out to be false,” Raddatz told Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey. “Right now, we have 900 U.S. troops in Syria, 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq, all of whom have been under threat from drones and missiles for months. We're also operating in the Red Sea. And every day, we have Navy SEALs, Delta Force special forces, potentially taking part in any kind of deadly raid.” Muir and Davis were not prepared for that.

Battaglio clearly didn't question whether they had looked at Harris' record to “fact-check” her; having never touched Harris, he clearly had no need for preparation on that point. The shameless zero came about because on the left, any attempt at fact-checking by Democrats who oppose Trump is viewed as objectionable, because it suggests that their lies can be treated as equivalent to Trump's lies. All anti-Trump journalists operate under the belief that any neutral stance is an atrocity.

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