ABC Denies Giving Harris Questions in Advance as Furor Over ‘Bias’ by Moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis Intensifies

ABC, facing mounting accusations of bias in its moderation of Tuesday’s presidential debate, is forcefully denying giving the questions in advance to Vice President Harris, or otherwise colluding with her campaign.“Absolutely not,” a spokesman for ABC News told the Daily Beast on Friday. “Harris was not given any questions before the debate.”The network also denied that any Harris campaign aides were in contact with the moderators, David Muir and Linsey Davis, during the 90-minute debate.Accusations of partiality were launched at the left-leaning news network even before the two candidates took the debate stage. President Trump, in the days leading up to the debate, repeatedly criticized ABC News as being riddled with bias, and “even worse” than NBC, which operates far-left MSNBC.President Trump shakes hands with Vice President Harris during an ABC News presidential debate at the National Constitution Center, Sept.10, 2024, at Philadelphia. AP/Alex BrandonSpecifically, Trump singled out an ABC News anchor and former Clinton operative, George Stephanopoulos, who played a key role in the effort to push President Biden out of the presidential election. The 45th president also, in the days prior to the debate, criticized an ABC correspondent who would host the network’s pre- and post-debate show, Martha Raddatz, for allegedly crying on election night in 2016. (She denies crying and the video is inconclusive.)Most notably, Trump pointed out multiple times before the debate that a Democratic operative and ABC News contributor, Donna Brazile, had been ousted from her commentary role at CNN in 2016 after she was exposed by Wikileaks for tipping off Senator Clinton about questions she would face at a “town hall.”“Will panelist Donna Brazil give the questions to the Marxist Candidate like she did for Crooked Hillary Clinton?” Trump wrote on Truth Social, sparking speculation that he would drop out of the debate.Such an action would violate the network’s debate rules, which state that “no topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.”President Trump and Vice President Harris debating on September 10, 2024, at Philadelphia. AP/Alex BrandonABC News put Ms. Brazile on its panel, led by Ms. Raddatz, for debate analysis on Tuesday night. Given her history, this move raised some eyebrows.The debate itself did little to quell concerns about ABC News’s possible bias. The day after the debate, Trump told told Fox News that Ms. Harris seemed “awfully familiar” with the questions raised by the moderators.Trump also claimed that the moderators — who fact-checked the GOP nominee five times over the course the 90-minute debate but failed to offer a correction of Ms. Harris once — were in on a “three-on-one” debate. “It was a rigged deal, as I assumed it would be, because when you looked at the fact that they were correcting everything and not correcting with her,” Trump said on Wednesday.Similar concerns were voiced by a podcaster and radio host, Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News star. Ms. Kelly, who has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of the debate, has even crafted an entire page on her website dedicated to ABC’s conduct.ABC World News Tonight Anchor David Muir, left, and ABC News Live Anchor Linsey Davis are enduring a hailstorm of criticism over their moderation of the September 10, 2024 presidential debate. AP Photo/Elise Amendola, FileBeyond slamming the moderators for putting on a “three-on-one debate” that allowed Ms. Harris to lie and get “away with it,” Ms. Kelly accused the network of trying to “steal this election” and “to sink Donald Trump.”She also brought up that a powerful Disney executive, Dana Walden, who oversees ABC News, is a longtime close friend of Ms. Harris. The vice president has credited Ms. Walden and her husband for the circumstances that led her to meet her husband, Doug Emhoff.“David Muir and Linsey Davis did exactly what their bosses’ wanted them to do,” Ms. Kelly wrote. “They did Dana Walden’s bidding.”Disney has long claimed, though, that Ms. Walden is only involved in leading the corporate side of its television business, and has no hand in editorial matters.Dana Walden, Co-Chairman, Disney Entertainment at a Disney fan event on August 09, 2024. Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Disney“ABC News has built its longstanding reputation on journalistic integrity,” the network said in a statement. “All editorial decisions are in the hands of ABC News management and the seasoned journalists and producers of ABC, who hold themselves to the highest journalistic standards.”On Thursday night, a well-connected entertainment business journalist, Matt Belloni, wrote in his Puck newsletter that he “can only imagine” that Ms. Walden was, in fact, mortified by the alleged bias of the ABC News moderators, as the fallout from the debate was endangering her chances at ascending to the top job at Disney should its chief executive, Bob Iger, ever retire.Ms. Kelly closed out her criticism of ABC by speculating that the “bias” against Trump was “so bad” that it would ultimately “backfire” against what she called the network’s efforts to elevate Ms. Harris’s campaign.“I actually think the American public is going to see through this, and there is probably going to be some empathy for Trump,” she wrote. “No fair minded person could think anything other than that.”President Trump and Vice President Harris participate during an ABC News presidential debate at the National Constitution Center, September 10, 2024, at Philadelphia. AP/Alex BrandonWhile most political analysts were quick to call the debate a victory for Ms. Harris, preliminary polls and interviews with undecided voters in key swing states paint a less conclusive picture.Some surveys are even showing Trump gaining on Ms. Harris after the debate. According to the most recent poll from Insider Advantage, Ms. Harris is trailing Trump by one point in the key swing state of Michigan.“I’ve looked at data that leads me to believe that you shouldn’t be surprised — and, by the way, Wilmington will not be surprised — if one of the most devastating debate takedowns of all time does not move the polls in the battleground states,” a political journalist, Mark Halperin, said on X on Thursday night.

ABC Denies Giving Harris Questions in Advance as Furor Over ‘Bias’ by Moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis Intensifies

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