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The debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is shaping up to be the one and only one between the candidates.
Watching tonight’s debate makes one wonder how this debate would have gone under Joe Biden. These ABC moderators are so insanely biased, it could have only helped poor old Joe. I never thought I would see the day when I would wish for Jake Tapper and Dana Bash back to moderate a debate, but here we are.
It really is crazy that we went from the best-moderated debate we've seen in years via CNN to one of the worst.
And I suspect a lot of it had to do with anger within some newsrooms about the outcome of the CNN debate. https://t.co/Q5H1Ad49pR
— AG (@AGHamilton29) September 11, 2024
David Muir and Linsey Davis have been terrible. TERRIBLE.
Must be so nice to have the moderators running cover for you as a candidate. Makes it so much easier.
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) September 11, 2024
Muir and Davis were busy fact-checking Donald Trump, but deliberately avoided fact-checking Harris. Kamala brought up the Charlottesville “fine people on both sides” lie, a lie that has now been debunked by even Snopes. She brought up the “bloodbath” comment.
And where were the moderators?
Did you catch that? In that exchange, Harris went over time. She was allowed to finish her thought. Trump went over on the very next answer (which he was doing well on), and he was interrupted and shut down with "we have a lot of issues to get to" and a commercial break.
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) September 11, 2024
Why, again, were these two chosen to be moderators? David Muir has proven to be heavily pro-Kamala Harris.
These were the moderators that were picked by the Biden campaign. They have been busy fact-checking Donald Trump all evening while giving Kamala Harris a pass.
It's hard for Harris to hit Trump on negotiating with the Taliban when her administration is currently negotiating with Hamas.
Would be nice to have debate moderators to point that one out in real time.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) September 11, 2024
Did the debate moderators correct her on this? If not, why not? https://t.co/CzQbY0kkHO
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) September 11, 2024
Now, Kamala Harris started the debate fairly nervous and immediately spitting out her talking points in her first statement. Was that a signal to the moderators to lend her a helping hand? Who knows. But this entire debate quickly became a three-on-one debate, with Kamala Harris hanging back while the moderators handled giving her questions and holding back Donald Trump.
MUIR: President Trump, you are the fonthead of all evil. Your response?
TRUMP: [Answer]MUIR: VP Harris, he is the fonthead of all evil. Your response?— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) September 11, 2024
Will this debate make a difference in the election? Possibly. Kamala Harris is likely to never step on the debate stage again, so this will be the only chance the American people have to see her get asked actual hard questions. And even when the questions were hard, like the one – ONE! – question about Afghanistan.
Kamala Harris just refused to take any responsibility for the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
ABC moderators don't even bring up the 13 service members killed.
Disgraceful.pic.twitter.com/uTt6R2NI5l
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 11, 2024
Donald Trump closed the debate with the question that he should have opened with, that Kamala Harris has had three and a half years as part of this administration, so why hasn’t she done all of these things that she claims she wants to do? Perhaps he tried to say it earlier, but he got cut off so often by Muir and Davis that he couldn’t get it out. Who knows.
This debate probably ends in a draw. It’s a missed opportunity for Donald Trump, because if he had stayed better focused through the debate, he could have flattened her. If he wants to win, he has got to stay focused, and he has to remind people that Kamala Harris, as Liz Cheney once said, is a “dangerous radical” who can’t become president. If Donald Trump really believes that Harris is too dangerous to become president, then he has to focus. Yes, he was fighting extraordinarily bad moderators, and Trump could have pointed out that Muir and Davis weren’t fact-checking her. That would have been a good thing. David Muir and Linsey David were Candy Crowley-level bad. They had a narrative, and Kamala Harris was allowed to hit Trump and then hide during her own debate, while the moderators ran defense for her.
The next debate we will see is the vice presidential one between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz. A vice presidential debate won’t move the needle much, but that will be the next time that anyone on the Democrat ticket faces a difficult question.
Featured image: composite of Donald Trump (Gage Skidmore Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license) and Kamala Harris (Public Domain via White House)
KnitMomma says: Kammie’s mic was not shut off all the time, so she was able to talk over Trump. Just one more example of moderator bias.
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Que says: You’re right — the mods weren’t fair. It was obvious.
But Trump has faced of biased media before, and still allowed them and Harris to get under his skin. His biggest enemy was not the moderators but himself.
Darleen Click says: IMHO, Trump is suffering more from the after-effects of the assassination attempt then we (or even he) knows and I think watching his loss of focus after a good, solid start speaks loudly to it. If you know anyone with PTSD, you’ll recognize it.
And the fact that the one time he started to mention it, the moderators shut him down and never brought it up AT all (plus that media had memory-holed it and the so-call investigation into it never makes any public updates) surely is a trigger.
Kamala’s rolling of eyes, face-making, smirking — all junior high mean girl moves – at the beginning and he never reacted … until much later when the “moderators” started attacking him.
Que says: You make a good point on the PTSD issue. Trump has seemed even more erratic than usual since the assassination attempt.
But to use a football analogy: you can blame the refs for every unearned down made by the opposing team, or for every incorrect penalty called on your own. But if your quarterback keeps throwing incomplete passes, and refuses to heed the advice of the offensive coach, then you just might have a serious problem.
However, will this debate affect the outcome of the election? I doubt it.
Ann in L.A. says: In the future:
4 debates
Each side draws up 5 proposals for a debate with their chosen formats, moderators, and topics.
The other side gets to throw out 2
Each side then picks two from their remaining three.
Flip a coin and alternate whose debate gets to lead off.
The VPOTUS debate would similar but with 2 debates.
Each side gets to control half of the debates, and no more pretending that the MSM is ever neutral.
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