Democracy Dies in Darkness

Trump blames ABC’s moderators for his debate dud. Voters disagree.

In a new poll, voters said by double digits the moderators were “fair and unbiased.” Many Republicans object, but past polling shows that’s largely a baked-in response.

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ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir addresses the audience with colleague Linsey Davis in 2020 in Manchester, N.H. (Elise Amendola/AP)
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Donald Trump and his allies have increasingly rallied around an explanation for his lopsided debate loss on Tuesday night: the lamestream media.

ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis’s move to fact-check Trump on a few occasions has engendered the most pushback. Trump and his allies have pitched the event as being “three on one” rather than a head-to-head clash with Vice President Kamala Harris. Even some conservative Trump critics have taken some issue, suggesting Harris should have been fact-checked, too.

It’s a difficult subject, and many moderators — like CNN’s in June — choose not to inject themselves in this way. For those interested in the debate over debate fact-checking, I’d point you to Washington Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler’s thoughtful thread. (He correctly notes that there is no comparison between the amount of misinformation Trump puts out and that of Harris. And Muir’s and Davis’s fact checks avoided some pitfalls from the past.)

The early reviews of the moderators are now in. And at the moment, it seems unlikely this will help Trump too much as he tries to explain away the debate.

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