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ABC News is apparently pressing the panic button in the wake of fierce criticism of its Sept. 10 presidential debate between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
A sworn statement by an ABC News whistleblower exposing network bias favoring Harris continues to be in focus regarding “assurances” to the Democrat’s campaign days before the event.
Now David Muir, anchor of ABC’s “World News Tonight” and co-moderator of the debate, is defending his performance during the matchup, as ratings for his evening news broadcast have plunged some 12% in the aftermath.
Note the date of the tweet below, almost a week before the debate. ABC gave Kamala Harris assurances that she would be favored in the debate on Sept 10. The ABC whistleblower confirmed this in a sworn affidavit the day before the debate. The ABC presidential debate was rigged in… https://t.co/7v9ffkfPJH
— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) September 17, 2024
“ABC News has offered assurances to the Harris campaign that if there is significant cross talk between Harris and Trump, the network may choose to turn on the mics so that the public can understand what is happening, the moderator would discourage either candidate from interrupting constantly and the moderator would also work to explain to viewers what is being said, according to the source familiar,” CNN reported before the event.
ABC News insists it did not break debate rules, initially stating: “ABC News followed the debate rules that both campaigns agreed on and which clearly state: No topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.”
A network spokesperson later told the Daily Beast: “Absolutely not. Harris was not given any questions before the date.”
The X account that posted the purported affidavit, @DocNetyoutube, reacted to ABC’s denial, stating:
Yesterday, ABC made a statement regarding the whistleblower affidavit. The only thing ABC said was that they did not give the questions or the topics to the Harris campaign. Well, nobody accused ABC of doing that. ABC has been accused of the following:
1.) Giving the Harris campaign sample questions, similar to the actual questions that would be used for the debate.
2.) Agreeing to give Harris a smaller podium and other arrangements to minimize the size differential between Harris and Trump.
3.) Fact Checking would be done for Donald Trump and NOT Kamala Harris
4.) Harris campaign gave questions to ABC that were not to be included in the debate. Including questions regarding her time as DA in SF and her time as California Attorney General.Out of all these accusations, the fact checking of Trump has been admitted to. The podium and split screen appearance to keep the height differential have already been proven, ABC did NOT deny communications with the Harris campaign without the Trump campaign being present and they will never deny that because they cannot. According to the whistleblower, ABC executives made numerous phone calls with the Harris campaign without including the Trump campaign on the call. Everything the whistleblower has submitted has been proven except for sample questions. There will be another tweet later today announcing action to be taken against ABC and the affiliates of ABC.
As WND reported Sunday, Sept. 15, an ABC News whistleblower released an affidavit punishable by perjury specifying allegations that the network made numerous assurances to the Harris campaign to favor the Democratic nominee for president.
ABC whistleblower affidavit has been released by @DocNetyoutube this morning. It alleges as a sworn statement under penalty of perjury that ABC coordinated with the Harris campaign to give her sample questions, assurances that Trump would be fact checked and Kamala would not, and… pic.twitter.com/DNyI2clpvS
— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) September 15, 2024
The sworn statement indicated: “It was agreed that Donald Trump would be subjected to fact-checking during the debate, while Kamala Harris would not comparable scrutiny. This was widely known throughout the company that Donald Trump would be fact-checked. In fact, various people were assigned to fact check observations it was perceived candidate Trump would make during the debate.
“In fact, [the] Harris campaign required assurances that Donald Trump would be fact checked. This was done via multiple communications with the Harris campaign whereas the Trump campaign was not included in the negotiations. To my understanding, any rules negotiations and conversations pertaining to the debate should have had both the Trump and Harris campaign involved, the Harris campaign had numerous more calls regarding the debate rules without the Trump campaign aware or on the call.”
The statement also says: “The Harris campaign was provided with sample questions that, while not the exact questions, covered similar topics that would appear during the debate.”
“Furthermore, the Harris campaign imposed serious restrictions on the scope of questioning, including:
- No questions regarding the perceived health of President Joe Biden.
- No inquires regarding her tenure as attorney general in San Francisco.
- No questions concerning her brother-in-law, Tony West, who faces allegations of embezzling billions of dollars in taxpayer funds and who may be involved in her administration if elected.
The whistleblower claims to have “observed a pronounced bias against Donald Trump within ABC News. Employees expressing favorable views towards him experience significant concerns about potential retribution.”
On Tuesday, Muir called the controversy over ABC’s performance “just noise.”
“All of the noise that you hear afterward about you know, ‘Which candidate won the debate, did the moderators win or lose?’” Muir told the audience on ABC’s “Live With Kelly and Mark.”
“That’s just noise. You all know that. The most important thing to remember is you all have the power.”
He said it was the “duty” of him and co-moderator Linsey Davis to discuss issues of importance to Americans, mentioning their inquiries about the border crisis, economy, reproductive rights, Afghanistan and the peaceful transfer of power.
“These are all really important issues, the issues of our time, really, and I always say as a moderator, what the candidates decide to do with that time – you can ask the questions, but they’ll answer with whatever they choose to answer with, and you have to be ready for whatever might come your way, even the most unexpected of moments,” Muir said.
ABC’s David Muir says that the controversy surrounding his historically awful moderation of the presidential debate is “just noise.”
Well his ratings are DOWN 12% following the debate. Less people are listening to his nightly noise now. Good! pic.twitter.com/XBH6KPLxni
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 17, 2024
Muir’s appearance on Tuesday’s talk show was perhaps prompted by a 12% drop in ratings for his nightly news broadcast since the debate.
Fox News reports: “Muir’s ‘World News Tonight’ averaged 6.7 million viewers on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the three episodes following the debate, after averaging 7.6 million in 2024 leading up to the debate.
“The 12% drop in viewers for ‘World News Tonight’ is more significant than slight declines ‘CBS Evening News’ and ‘NBC Nightly News’ saw when comparing the three episodes following ABC’s debate to the year-to-date totals, although Muir’s newscast remained the No. 1 broadcast evening newscast.”
ABC News fact-checked Trump at least five times during the Sept 10 debate, but preferred not a single fact-check for Harris.
Davis told the Los Angeles Times last week that her intense fact-checking of Trump was influenced by the June 27 debate on CNN that prompted President Joe Biden to exit the 2024 race.
“People were concerned that statements were allowed to just hang and not [be] disputed by the candidate Biden, at the time, or the moderators,” Davis told the paper.
On Sunday, five days after the debate, Martha Raddatz of ABC News finally admitted Harris was wrong when she said during the debate there is “not one member of the United States military who is in active duty in a combat zone in any war zone around the world.”
“Our fact-checkers found that to be false,” Raddatz said.
“There are currently 900 U.S. military personnel in Syria, 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq. All have been under regular threat from drones and missiles for months. We also have action in the Red Sea,” Raddatz added. “Also, every single day, the Navy SEALs, Delta Forces special operators can be part of any sort of deadly raid.”
Neither Muir nor Davis alerted their 70 million debate viewers to the egregious falsehood by Harris.
Follow Joe on Twitter @JoeKovacsNews
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