Kamala Harris told many falsehoods that the debate moderators did not correct
Harris lied about Trump’s stances on abortion and being a dictator, while she repeated debunked falsehoods about Charlottesville and the “bloodbath” comment
The failure of ABC News to fact-check Harris in real-time while going after Trump represents the bias and false objectivity in the mainstream media
The story
During Tuesday night’s debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the ABC News moderators caught flak for overwhelmingly pushing back against Trump while going easy on Harris. Over and over, moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis “fact-checked” Donald Trump, even on claims that were correct.
Because the debate felt more like, as Trump said, a “three-on-one,” we believe it is necessary to review some of the claims made by the vice president that were false to pick up the ball where the ABC moderators dropped it.
Little mentioned in the mainstream media is how Dana Walden, a senior executive at Disney, which owns ABC News, has known Kamala Harris since the 1990s, while their husbands, Matt Walden and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, have been friendly since the 1980s.
This conflict of interest is significant and raises questions about whether the debate should have been hosted on ABC News at all.
Fact-checking Harris
CLAIM: Kamala Harris stated that, for the first time in a century, no active-duty US military personnel were deployed in combat zones anywhere in the world.
FACT-CHECK: The US currently has troops stationed in Iraq and Syria, where Iran-backed militias have repeatedly targeted them over the past year. In the Middle East, thousands of American sailors are also under threat from drone and missile strikes launched by the Houthi forces in Yemen, backed by Iran. Earlier this year, three American soldiers lost their lives in a border attack in Syria carried out by Iranian-aligned groups.
CLAIM: Kamala Harris said that full-term abortions were not happening anywhere in the country, and moderator Linsey Davis added that there “is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.”
FACT-CHECK: There are nine states that do not have any restrictions on abortion.
Additionally, Donald Trump accurately noted that in 2019, former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) said that if a mother delivered an unwanted baby in need of life-saving care, the child "would be kept comfortable" and "would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired.”
Northam’s statement is evidence that, in some instances, it is legal in Virginia to kill a baby after it’s been born.
In Gov. Tim Walz’s Minnesota, state data reveals eight instances when babies who survived abortion were left to die. In 2023, Walz removed the law that required the state report when abortions resulted in the birth of a live baby.
CLAIM: Harris said she was not going to take anybody’s guns away.
FACT-CHECK: In 2019, Harris said she supported a “mandatory buyback program.”
CLAIM: Harris said that Donald Trump called neo-Nazis “very fine people” and that he claimed there would be a “bloodbath” if he were not re-elected this year.
FACT-CHECK: Trump did not refer to neo-Nazis as "very fine people." At the rally where neo-Nazis were present, there were also individuals protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue who were not associated with neo-Nazis. Trump recognized this during his press conference and then immediately condemned the white supremacists, saying, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists. They should be condemned totally.”
Trump made his "bloodbath" comment during a March rally, specifically warning that the American auto industry would be devastated if he is not re-elected.
CLAIM: Kamala Harris asserted that Donald Trump would support a national abortion ban as president and that he would restrict IVF treatments for women.
FACT-CHECK: Donald Trump has not endorsed a national abortion ban, and instead is urging states to make their own laws in the aftermath of Roe v Wade being overturned. He also came out strongly in favor of IVF treatments.
CLAIM: Kamala Harris said that Donald Trump would be a “dictator on day one” if re-elected.
FACT-CHECK: In December, during a town hall with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Trump was asked to reassure the public that he would not act as a dictator, a claim frequently directed at the former president by his opponents.
Speaking with some humor in his voice, knowing it would unsettle his longtime friend Hannity, Trump responded that he would not be a dictator, “Except for day one. I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
Trump did not insinuate that he would actually be a dictator, nor “terminate” the Constitution — another false claim made by Harris.
CLAIM: Harris said that Donald Trump wanted an abortion “monitor” to track women’s pregnancies.
FACT-CHECK: Trump has never made any statements remotely similar to this.
Kamala Harris’ team may have come up with this idea based on one idea outlined in Project 2025 — which Trump has repeatedly disavowed — that recommended the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to obtain better records of abortions and miscarriages, ensuring that the two are not overlapping in the statistics.
But even Project 2025 never made a mention of an abortion “monitor.” This claim by Harris appears to be entirely fabricated.
CLAIM: Donald Trump was fact-checked by moderator David Muir, who pointed out that, according to the FBI, violent crime rates are coming down in America.
FACT-CHECK: Upward News analyzed the FBI crime statistics Muir is likely citing, and it is misleading to say crime rates are going down. In the past couple of years, most violent crime rates have been coming down, but that is only because these rates skyrocketed to enormously high levels in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests.
Because of these protests, progressive district attorneys were elected across the country in 2020, many of whom have overseen mass spikes in violent crimes.
Donald Trump also correctly pointed out that migrant crime is an increasing problem under the Biden-Harris administration.
Why it matters
Following CNN's well-moderated debate in June, it became evident how a media outlet favoring Democrats could tilt the scales in favor of their preferred candidate.
Millions of Americans still depend on legacy media outlets like ABC for objective news. However, when debate moderators treat one candidate with kid gloves while intensely scrutinizing the other, it damages their credibility as impartial reporters.
Moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis exposed ABC News' bias in favor of Kamala Harris and may lead the network to face backlash over their unprofessional conduct.
