PBS’s favoritism in the vice-presidential debate began beforehand, in a political roundtable on Tuesday evening’s PBS News Hour in which their White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez rolled out a list of Harris-Walz talking points:
Laura Barron-Lopez: And sources told me that Gov. Walz is essentially trying to exit this debate the same way he entered it, which is with a higher favorability on average across polls than JD Vance has. I'm also told that Gov. Walz is expected to try to make moments and hit JD Vance on abortion, on Project 2025, as well as on Trump's past comments saying that he has -- quote -- "a concept of a plan" for getting rid of the Affordable Care Act.
But even though Walz is very much liked by progressives, Amna, the Harris campaign is hoping that his everyday dad persona, his relatability, can speak to centrist Republicans, specifically Nikki Haley voters, which the campaign is aggressively courting. And they got a boost today, Amna, from a specific group of former Nikki Haley voters who voted for Haley in the Republican primaries in their states. And this is a PAC that's called Haley Voters For Harris. And they launched a seven-figure digital ad campaign today. They shared the details first with News Hour. And I spoke to Craig Snyder, chair of the group, who said that the goal of these new ads is to create a permission structure for Republicans who may be considering voting for a Democrat for the first time in their life.
[Clip: Craig Snyder, Chairman, Haley Voters For Harris: Our argument is pretty simple. And that is that the vice president is a candidate of the center of American politics. [!] She may be center-left, and these voters may be center-right. But the key word in that sentence is center. This is a pragmatic individual who is seeking in this campaign a coalition with people across the aisle.]
Barron-Lopez: These ads are featuring lifelong regular Republicans who voted in the primary and who are intending to vote for Kamala Harris come the November election….
After the actual debate, which aired on CBS (simulcast on PBS), PBS reporters shied away from admitting Vance’s clear win over Walz, focusing on Vance refusing to say that Trump lost in 2020.
Later, during PBS’s livestream on YouTube, hosted by Deema Zein, Barron-Lopez and congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins chatted about the debate and took viewer questions.
Predictably, Barron-Lopez embraced pro-Democratic journalistic “fact-checking” and defended the partisan fact-checking at last month’s ABC presidential debate, claiming “ABC’s way of doing it was a bit more beneficial to the American public.” She also fiercely defended CBS violating its own debate rules by breaking in twice last night to fact-check Vance.
After Vance had talked about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, moderator Margaret Brennan felt compelled to jump in.
CBS’s Margaret Brennan: “And just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, Temprary Protected Status.”
But when O’Donnell tried to pivot to the economy, Vance challenged Brennan on her fact-check, which he noted accurately was against the agreed-upon debate rules. So much for those rules.
JD Vance: The rules were that you guys were not going to fact-check. And since you’re fact-checking me, I think it's important to say what's actually going on. So, there is an application called the CBP1 app, were you can go as an illegal migrant, apply for asylum or apply for parole and be granted legal status at the wave of a Kamala Harris open border wand. It's not a person coming in and applying for a green card and waiting for ten years.
Brennan: Thank you, Senator.
Barron-Lopez defended CBS’s fact check as vital, given that the rhetoric of Trump and Vance endangering Haitian migrants:
Barron-Lopez: Now the other fact-check came when they were talking about Haitian immigrants, because JD Vance has even said out loud, ‘Sure, I don’t really care that they’re legal,’ and has said that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio are legal.
He has acknowledged that they are, and he still continues to talk about them as though that they’re illegal or undocumented immigrants, and they’re not, and so clearly CBS felt that it was important, given all the things that have happened in Springfield, Ohio, given that there have been bomb threats, given that children have not been able to go to schools, that Haitian immigrants living there have felt as though they can’t really go about their daily lives and are fearful of some of the threats they are receiving because of the statements made by Donald Trump and JD Vance, the moderators felt that it was important to state that those Haitian immigrants are legal immigrants.
Besides blaming all threats on the Republican ticket, Barron-Lopez skipped the fact that Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, hailed by the press for refuting his own presidential ticket on migrants “eating pets,” said the threatening calls were predominantly coming from an unnamed foreign nation, which amounts to election interference.
