Wow! ABC's presidential debate was remarkably skewed. Donald Trump drew specific hardball questions. Kamala Harris drew vague, open-ended softballs. Trump was "fact checked" six times. Harris never was. When you think the point of being a professional journalist is to Destroy Trump, of course you're going to be proud of this debate moderation.
Senior research analyst Bill D'Agostino joins the show to underline how ABC defines "professionalism." We wanted to apologize for saying in pre-debate interviews that maybe ABC would be like Jake Tapper and Dana Bash were on CNN for the Trump-Biden debate in June.
The worst part was asking Harris "questions" that sounded like "your turn. Go." Harris clearly had pre-rehearsed answers. So vague questions made it easier to dodge and launch into the boilerplate. On Afghanistan, they asked "do you believe you bear any responsibility in the way that withdrawal played out?
After challenging Trump about his insults at a National Association of Black Journalists event about Harris "deciding to be black," then they simply asked her "your thoughts on this?" We wanted Trump to point to the moderators and say to Harris, "why are you afraid of an interview with these two Democrats?"
Of course, CNN's Daniel Dale asserted that Trump had lied about 33 times during the debate, and Harris had maybe one. She was "overwhelmingly factual." This is the PolitiFact tilt on CNN. Going into the debate, PolitiFact dumped 199 "Pants on Fire" articles on Trump. Harris has zero. She was elected Attorney General of California in 2011, but it's zero over the last 13 years.
Enjoy the podcast below, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
