In the wake of the September 10 presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris that was hosted by ABC News and debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, a debate that many on the right and even some on the left claimed featured moderator bias against Trump, a Republican senator has launched an effort to hold ABC News accountable for the bias.
That was Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas, who wrote in a letter on Wednesday, September 18, about the debate and the alleged bias during it. He said that the network’s moderators were, in only fact-checking former President Trump’s claims and comments, openly partisan and biased. He demanded that the network release any pre-debate communications it had with the Harris campaign in the interest of allowing scrutiny regarding its fairness and impartiality.
Such is what Sen. Marshal argued and demanded in a letter that he sent to ABC News President Almin Karamehmedovic and Harris’ campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodriguez on Wednesday, focusing particularly on the issue of bias against the former president during the presidential debate.
Beginning, he wrote, “Dear Mr. Karamehmedovic and Ms. Rodriguez, I write to you concerning the blatant partiality of ABC News during the September 10, 2024, debate between President Trump and Vice President Harris. Recent reporting has suggested the possibility that the Harris campaign may have inappropriately influenced the proceedings to benefit Vice President Harris and undermine President Trump.”
Continuing, he explained how the debate was inappropriately influenced in favor of Harris, saying, “This was accomplished, among other tactics, via excessive fact checking of President Trump while allowing Kamala Harris to avoid answering questions directly. If these and other allegations are true, the impartiality of the mainstream media will continue to be questioned by the American people.”
Later in the letter, he added, “On debate night, it became abundantly clear that ABC News and its respective moderators had a biased agenda. Over 67 million Americans watched as a policy exchange between two presidential candidates quickly turned into a three-on-one debate against the Republican nominee. Davis and Muir repeatedly fact-checked President Trump in real time regarding his arguments, refuting his claims on topics such as the availability of late-term abortions and the effects of thousands of Haitian immigrants on the town of Springfield, Ohio.”
Further, he showed how he will help hold the network accountable, saying, a bit later on in the letter, “For these reasons, I demand that you make public all correspondence, records, and potential coordination between the Harris campaign and ABC News ahead of the September 10* ABC debate. I also request you publish all internal ABC News texts and emails, both between ABC employees themselves and with the Harris campaign, to elucidate any potential biases that ABC News employees may have demonstrated prior to the debate between President Trump and Vice President Harris.”
Sen. Marshall also said, speaking about the need for transparency, “The American people deserve transparency and accountability from the mainstream media and a full accounting of whether ABC News coordinated with the Harris campaign to skew the debate’s questions and fact-checking in favor of the Vice President.”
Sen. Marshall was attacked for the letter by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware). “You know that a game didn’t go well for a team if, two weeks later, they’re still complaining about the calls the refs made. No disrespect to Sen. Marshall, but this seems to me to be further proof that Vice President Harris had a dominant and successful performance at that debate if he’s still questioning the refs,” Coons claimed.
