The bar was so low for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in last week’s debate that once she walked across the stage, shook Donald Trump’s hand, and stood behind her podium without throwing up, the media at large was ready to declare her a winner. Still, both moderators offered their support towards a victory, aggressively fact-checking Trump while allowing discrepancies in Harris's views to skate unnoticed. Visibly nervous, the still-unknown candidate met with her opponent for the first and potentially last time in Philadelphia, just two months shy of election day.
The moderators—ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis— repeatedly “live fact-checked” the former President, offering five real-time corrections to his remarks. This stands in contrast to Trump’s debate with original competitor, Joe Biden, on CNN, which opted instead to post its fact-checking online the following day. Meanwhile, Muir and Davis continually allowed Kamala Harris to make false claims about Trump regarding both his past and his agenda for an upcoming administration without interruption.
Included was a repeated insistence that her opponent intended to implement a conservative agenda known as Project 2025, which Trump has consistently denied ever having read. She went on to claim that the former President had warned of a “bloodbath” were he not to be re-elected come November. While he did indeed use that word, it was during a speech at a gathering of United Auto Workers that only referenced the car manufacturing industry and its related jobs in the United States if offshoring and outsourcing were allowed to continue. Similarly, Harris repeated a long-debunked claim that Trump had said that there were “very fine people on both sides” of a Charlottesville, Virginia rally that turned violent in 2017, many of whom were white supremacists. Trump was actually referring to a separate issue involving a statue removal.
One particularly egregious Harris assertion was to suggest that recent Supreme Court rulings have made Trump, or any future President, entirely immune from prosecution. Her attempt to stoke fear in the American people over his potential actions is unconscionable, along with being wholly inaccurate. While SCOTUS did recently find in favor of partial presidential immunity, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote clearly in the majority opinion that “The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law.” Harris’s misstatement is the type of hyperbole that leads to political violence, such as the recent attempt on former President Trump’s life during a July campaign event. To suggest a second Trump administration is the end of democracy is edging close to incitement, and the Vice President should be particularly cautious how she phrases such ideas.
During its recap, CNN claimed Trump had made a whopping 33 false claims during the debate. They admitted just one for Harris. For ninety minutes, an illegitimately nominated candidate was allowed to craft a narrative regarding Trump’s agenda without interruption while he was repeatedly called out over technicalities. One statement on which the moderators pounced was Trump’s suggestion about extremist Democrat abortion views- particularly those of Harris and her Vice-Presidential nominee Tim Walz. After Trump suggested that some states would allow a baby to die after having been delivered alive, moderator David Muir quickly muddled his argument by saying, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it is born.” Muir’s defense is specious at best and entirely disregards the legal gray area surrounding post-abortion births.
Factually, there is no federal requirement to provide care to an infant if it is born alive following an attempted abortion. In 2019, then-Senator Kamala Harris voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act alongside forty-three of her Democratic colleagues. She again voted against the safeguards in 2020. Tim Walz has likewise endangered these infants, having repealed the Minnesota requirement for physicians to attempt to save the lives of babies born alive after an abortion during his administration. There is also no federal requirement to report the number of babies born under these circumstances or what happens to them. Moreover, both candidates on the Democratic ticket have actively worked against instituting protections for these vulnerable lives. Still, Trump was aggressively fact-checked.
Meanwhile, Harris was allowed to present fresh legislative ideas that diverged from her previous beliefs without explanation. Since 2019, the Vice President has evidently changed her mind regarding significant policy points, including no longer supporting an electric vehicle mandate, a fracking ban, and unmitigated immigration. A blank slate, somehow ready and able to be the leader of the free world. All that’s missing is the projected hopes and dreams of a nation full of exhausted, disenchanted voters just hoping to buy groceries and fill their cars with gas. We can see the strings, and the man behind the curtain is not as concealed as he was hoping.
The unbalanced debate presented by ABC crystalizes the favored status of Harris’s candidacy, with any nameless, faceless ‘D’ a better option than Donald Trump. Her views, plans, and history are moot, provided she follows her party-provided talking points, and the media is clearly willing to aid and abet this sleight of hand. The equal readiness to spin Trump’s positions and misrepresent his previous statements makes clear we are beyond the point of balanced journalism.
Babies born alive following abortions is a genuine issue in the United States, but it was degraded and dismissed from discussion altogether because it presented an inconvenient truth for Democrats during the debate, and Harris could offer no generally acceptable defense. Muir, Davis, and ABC controlled the narrative beyond a reasonable level and robbed Americans of an opportunity to hear robust discussions on relevant issues. If the candidates decide to participate in a second round, one can only hope they will leave the fact-checking for post-debate and allow voters to make their own decisions on what really matters.
How did you feel about the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris? Were the moderators fair to both candidates?
Hilary Gunn is a Connecticut native with a degree in Criminal Justice from the George Washington University. She works for a nonprofit and has previously collaborated with the CT GOP as an activist, political campaign manager and field director, and social media organizer. She is currently serving in her fourth term of municipal office and has previously acted as a delegate on the Republican Town Committee.