Was the ABC News debate rigged? A bombshell allegation from a purported whistleblower says the Kamala Harris campaign was given a copy of the questions and was assured that the vice president wouldn’t be fact-checked live on-air during her debate with former President Donald Trump. An affidavit allegedly from this individual was released last weekend. Now, ABC News has responded to these allegations after days of intense speculation, sneaking it in as the news cycle is preoccupied with the latest Trump assassination attempt in West Palm Beach, Florida (via Daily Beast):
By “knocks down” they mean they issued a statement denying it.
— Kevin McMahon (@Kevin__McMahon) September 17, 2024
And they only denied PART of the allegations. https://t.co/W6J7nLXiuk
ABC News has again insisted that no topics or questions were shared with either Vice President Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, and their respective campaigns, in advance of last week’s presidential debate.
The network’s statement came after it declined to directly address allegations—made in an allegedly sworn statement, purportedly by one of its staff—that it helped Harris in the debate.
[…]
The name of the person who signed the document is obscured, but in the six pages, they make claims which—if true—would be explosive.
The allegations include that Harris’ team allegedly negotiated specific camera angles to portray her more favorably than Trump. The document also claims the campaign negotiated rules with ABC without involving the Trump team, and it managed to get the network to avoid specific topics including President Joe Biden’s health; Harris’ tenure as “Attorney General in San Francisco”; and her brother-in-law and adviser Tony West.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, ABC News did not address any of the specific allegations: “ABC News followed the debate rules that both campaigns agreed on and which clearly state: No topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.”
[…]
ABC categorically denied to The Daily Beast last week that Harris was given any questions ahead of last week’s debate, shooting down one of the talking points that Trump and other right-wingers tried to use to explain the former president’s dismal debate performance.
“Absolutely not,” an ABC News spokesperson told The Daily Beast. “Harris was not given any questions before the debate.”
The network’s debate rules stated that “no topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.”
The spokesperson also said no aides were in contact with moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. Trump aides have attacked the moderators as “agents of the Harris campaign” following their efforts, which have been almost universally lauded.
A source familiar with the matter also dismissed the purported fact-check “assurances” as untrue. Harris’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
BREAKING.🚨
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) September 15, 2024
ABC News whistleblower swears under penalty of perjury that the Kamala Harris campaign dictated the terms of the questions during the presidential debate.
Furthermore, the Harris campaign insisted upon live "fact checking" of Donald Trump during the debate.
ABC… pic.twitter.com/vRvaOdgUln
🚨 FULL ABC AFFIDAVIT RELEASED! 👇
— Apple Lamps (@lamps_apple) September 15, 2024
County [REDACTED]
Date: September 9, 2024
Affiant [REDACTED]
I [REDACTED], being duly sworn, do hereby make the following statement under penalty of perjury:
1.) My name [REDACTED], I reside at [REDACTED], Manhattan New York.
2.) I have… pic.twitter.com/v56a5xMR6l
Of course, this is the response. What—you thought they were going to admit to such a scandal? There’s one huge problem: no one trusts the media. That balance remains deep in the negative after years of anti-Trump fake news nonsense stemming from the Russian collusion hoax and the interference on the Hunter Biden laptop, the latter of which was dismissed as a Kremlin disinformation campaign that eventually was proven to be true.
Also, Daily Beast was the go-to outlet ABC News used to first respond to these allegations and offered a blanket denial:
⁉️ ⁉️ Funny how the Daily Beast seems to be the only media outlet that got a blanket denial from ABC News yesterday that someone at the network leaked the debate questions to Kamala Harris. Maybe there are others, but that's the only one I've seen so far.
— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) September 13, 2024
ABC News… pic.twitter.com/qbl6cCaFor
Again, this isn’t an isolated incident: Donna Brazile sent questions to the Hillary Clinton camp in 2016. The top Democratic Party official, a CNN contributor, then lost her gig after these revelations. There is one notable difference: we don’t have Wikileaks in 2024. These emails from Brazile got leaked because of that site. Who knows what was said now, but if they did it once, is it out of line to suggest they haven’t done so multiple times in the past?
No.
Also, a blanket denial won’t do much in terms of persuasion since we all saw what happened: some of the allegations panned out, as Harris lied repeatedly during the event and never got any pushback unlike Trump. The former president’s campaign was expecting unfair treatment, but it was so explicitly biased. At times, you’d thought communications staffers at the Democratic National Committee were moderating instead of David Muir and Linsey Davis.
While some attention has been placed on Davis and Harris being sorority sisters, it’s this admission from the ABC moderator that will keep the ‘rigged’ narrative alive—Davis admitted she was going to do live fact checks to avoid a Biden-like meltdown like the one we saw on CNN (via Fox News):
ABC News anchor Linsey Davis admitted in a post-debate interview that her fact-checking of former President Trump was influenced by the earlier CNN debate that went disastrously for President Biden.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Davis said she wanted to address concerns that Trump's statements could be allowed to "hang" there unchallenged by his opponent or the moderators, as they were when Trump and Biden debated on CNN in June.
"Davis, wearing pink glasses while speaking to The Times over breakfast at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia, said the decision to attempt to correct the candidates was in response to the June 27 CNN debate between Trump and President Biden, whose poor performance led to his exit from the race," the Times reported.
"People were concerned that statements were allowed to just hang and not [be] disputed by the candidate Biden, at the time, or the moderators," Davis told the outlet on Wednesday morning.
But Harris’ lies are okay to fester, huh? Davis’ line is the same one repeated any time Democrats look bad on policy or optics: It’s OK when we do it.
There’s a track record of bias, and now, one of the moderators intended to tilt the scales. ABC News should accept this story isn’t going to die; as we know, the establishment press is a socialist coven that hates Trump.
Whatever they have to say, I’m against it—and reject it.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member