WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans complained Wednesday that ABC News’ presidential debate the night before was unfair to the Republican candidate.
But the campaign teams of Trump and the Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris also discussed in the media the possibility of a second debate before the election on November 5.
Trump and his allies said ABC News anchors – David Muir, anchor and editor in chief of “World News Tonight,” and Linsey Davis, anchor of Sunday’s “World News Tonight” and host of “ABC News Live Prime” – sided with Harris by fact-checking some of Trump’s more outlandish claims.
“It was three to one,” Trump said on Wednesday in a phone call to Fox News’ morning program “Fox & Friends,” referring to Harris and the two moderators. “It was a set-up deal, as I expected, because when you consider that they corrected everything and not with her.”
At Tuesday night’s debate, Davis disputed Trump’s claim that a former Democratic governor had raised the possibility of allowing abortions after the birth of a child.
“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after birth,” Davis said.
Muir also contradicted Trump when he repeated unfounded rumors that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating residents’ pets. The Springfield city manager said he had refuted that claim.
“A terribly moderated debate,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Fox News’ Sean Hannity immediately after the debate. “It was three against one.”
Representatives for ABC News did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the criticism.
Polls on the debate
The view that the ABC moderators are biased in Harris’ favor is hardly shared outside the Republican Party.
In a YouGov survey Of more than 3,000 adults, 40% said the moderators were fair and unbiased. The next most common answer was “don’t know” at 29%, and 27% of respondents said the moderators were biased against Harris.
A majority of independents (32%) and 69% of Democrats also said the moderators were fair. Just over half of Republicans said Muir and Davis were unfair to Trump.
On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump praised his performance in the debate overnight and posted several screenshots of polls from right-wing news agencies that suggested he had won the debate.
“Comrade Kamala Harris wants another debate because she lost so badly – just look at the polls! That’s the way it is with prizefighters, when they lose one fight, they immediately want another one. MAGA2024,” Trump wrote in response to the Harris campaign’s suggestion for a second meeting.
Trump defended his comments about Haitian migrants in Ohio. The false claims circulated in right-wing circles, and reinforced on social media on Monday from Trump’s running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance of Ohio.
He released a police audio published by the conservative news agency The Federalist, claiming that migrants were carrying geese in tardy August. Trump also released a video Fact-checked by the Canton, Ohio newspaper The Repository about a Canton woman with no known connection to the Caribbean nation who was arrested on August 16 and charged with animal cruelty for allegedly killing and eating a cat.
Before the debate, Trump posted an image created using artificial intelligence showing himself on his private jet, surrounded by cats and waterfowl that he is hugging, as well as an army of cats wearing MAGA hats and carrying semi-automatic rifles.
Another debate?
During a September 11 memorial event in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Trump said According to reports said he would be open to two more debates hosted by NBC News and Fox News.
The NBC event was scheduled to take place on September 25, but Harris did not agree to it, preferring an October date.
Fox executives on Tuesday night renewed the broadcaster’s offer to host another debate in a swing state in October.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in an email that the former president’s Fox News comment was a reference to a town hall meeting with commentator Sean Hannity earlier this month.
“It was supposed to be on September 4th,” Leavitt wrote. “Kamala didn’t show up, so it became a town hall meeting with Sean Hannity.”
Harris’ campaign said the vice president wants another debate with Trump in October. Campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon reiterated this in a statement tardy Tuesday.
“Under the bright spotlight, Americans could see the choice they will have to make at the ballot box this fall: either move forward with Kamala Harris or go back with Trump,” O’Malley Dillon wrote. “That’s what they saw tonight and that’s what they should see at a second debate in October. Vice President Harris is ready for a second debate. Is it Donald Trump?”
