LOS ANGELES.–Former President Donald Trump, 78, raised questions about the Sept. 10 ABC News presidential debate with 59-year-old Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris insists that the microphones be live or open through the debate, unlike the muted mikes during CNN June 27 debate. Muted mikes prevented a repeat of the constant interruptions that happened when Trump and 81-year-old President Joe Biden debated in 2020. Harris campaign officials want open mikes because their plan is to bate Trump into interruptions and inappropriate remarks in front of a national TV debate audience. Trump has several reasonable concerns about letting Trump-hating ABC News sponsor a debate when their moderators could easily stack their questions against Trump to favor Harris. Whether admitted to or not, ABC News is heavily biased to support a Harris presidency.
Media bias is a real problem for Trump in the 2024 campaign, not only running against Harris and her liberal positions but also against the press. No media organization, with the possible exception of Fox News, favors a Trump presidency. All networks actively work to promote the Harris campaign, doing anything possible to sabotage Trump. When it comes to disseminating fake news, the mainstream press is second to none, only pretending to deliver nopartisan news. But everyone knows that Trump doesn’t get a fair shake in the media, with Democrats routinely repeating fake news attributed to Trump, such as praising Charolotteville’s neo-Nazis, saying WW I and WW II veterans were “suckers and losers,” telling folks to inject bleach to treat Covid-19, saying Trump endorsed the 2025 Project, and many other lies. Fake news lets Democrats repeat falsehoods with impunity.
Trump has real concerns of debating on ABC News, knowing the extent of media bias against him. Saying he was treated fairly in the June CNN debate, it could turn out the same way with Harris. But the fact that Harris insists on open mikes shows that her campaign strategists want to bait Trump into sounding erratic to a national TV audience. Trump raised concerns about ABC News giving Harris questions in advance, like CNN did at Hillary Clinton town hall event in 2016. “I watched ABC FAKE NEWS this morning, both lightweight reporter Jonathan Carl’s ridiculous and biased interview of Tom Cotton [who was fantastic] and their so-called Panel of Trump Haters, and I ask, why would I do the Debate against Kamala Harris on that network? Trump asked on Truth Social platform. Trump has every right to question of any debate with known Democrat bias against his campaign.
Harris campaign demanding they have open mikes when that was not the agreed on format of the June 27 CNN debate, suggests the Harris campaign is running scared. Harris strategists want to bait Trump into looking bad, something that happened when he debated Joe in 2020. Keeping the mikes muted is the only way to assure an orderly debate, allowing both candidates to give their answers. No question that ABC News could limit questions to Harris strong-points like civil rights, gender rights and women’s rights. Can you imagine if all the questions on Trump are about civil rights, gender rights and women’s rights? Wouldn’t that be the ultimate fake debate? Trump doesn’t trust ABC News to be fair but do anything possible to make him look bad. Democrats and the press narrative is that Trump lies constantly, not the fake news that only tells the truth.
No question that Trump has the deck stacked against him in the fake news. ABC News barely contains its hateful bias against Trump, and glowing remarks about Harris. “They’ve got a lot of questions to answer!!!” Trump wrote. “Why did Harris turn down Fox, NBC, CBS and even CNN? Stay tuned!!” Trump said, raising questions whether he would back out of the Sept. 10 ABC News debate. Whatever wrangling between the two sides, it’s likely that the Sept. 10 ABC News debate would go on as scheduled but only with the closed mike format used by CNN successfully in the June 27 debate with Biden. Trump’s team is well-aware of the collusion between ABC News and the Democrat Party and must weigh out the advantages of another national TV debate before the election. Trump knows that Harris was a poor debater when she dropped out of the 2020 Democrat primaries.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
