In the aftermath of possibly one of the most biased and unfair presidential debates, criticism has erupted over the ABC News moderators who repeatedly fact-checked former President Donald Trump while throwing softball questions to Vice President Kamala Harris.
The co-founder and co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, Frank Fahrenkopf Jr., said the Sept. 10 debate was the worst performance he has ever seen.
“What really shocked me last night was the way the moderators handled it,” Fahrenkopf said. “You know, we always explain to our moderators — and we’ve done 33 of these debates, starting back in 1988 — that their job is to be facilitators. They’re not supposed to get involved themselves.”
Fahrenkopf was concerned with the moderators' favoritism toward Harris. They refused to grill her on her policy positions. Instead, they spent almost the entire 90-minute debate interjecting and fact-checking everything Trump had to say. The moderators fact-checked Trump five times and failed to correct Harris even once.
“It’s different than if you had someone on your show and you asked them a question, and they answered in a different way than they said a month before. You would correct them. But moderators are not supposed to do that,” he continued.
He said the moderators overstepped their roles and focused too much on their interaction with the candidate. Fahrenkopf explained that a debate is between two candidates, not the candidates and the moderators.
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“I don’t know what their thoughts were, but they clearly were oversized, I think, on the way they treated the former president and the way they treated the present vice president. I think they bent backwards to help her,” Fahrenkopf added.
In a post-debate interview, ABC moderator Linsey Davis admitted that his decision to correct Trump during the debate was influenced by the June 27 CNN debate between Trump and President Joe Biden.
“People were concerned that statements were allowed to just hang and not [be] disputed by the candidate Biden, at the time, or the moderators,” David told the Los Angeles Times.
Davis insisted that she and co-moderator David Muir were ready to fact-check both candidates throughout the night. She said it was impossible to catch every misstatement the candidates made, despite not acknowledging that only Trump’s statements were caught.
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