ABC News debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis kept interrupting former President Trump during Tuesday night’s presidential debate with what they called “fact checks,” but some of those checks weren’t quite accurate.
When the topic of abortion came up, Harris falsely claimed that Trump would sign a national abortion ban. Trump has made it clear many times that he’s not interested in supporting a ban across the country. Instead, he shifted the conversation to late-term abortions. But after he finished, Davis jumped in and incorrectly said that full-term abortion isn’t legal in any state, without giving Trump a chance to respond.
Now, despite what Davis said, some Democratic politicians have actually supported the idea of full-term abortions, including former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. He once said that if a baby was born alive after a failed abortion, the child would be “made comfortable” while the mother and doctor decided what to do next.
Later in the debate, Muir claimed that Trump stopped an immigration bill that had passed through Senate committees. The bill would have allowed up to 10,000 illegal immigrants to come into the U.S. each day and provided funding to speed up asylum claims. It also included hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid to countries like Ukraine and Israel. Muir incorrectly stated that Trump killed this so-called border deal, but the bill would have only capped illegal immigration at record-breaking levels.
Muir also claimed that there were no reports of Haitian immigrants killing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. While local police haven’t confirmed these reports yet, several town residents have raised concerns and asked officials to address the issue. There have even been police reports that back up Trump’s claims.
Here's Trump getting fact-checked on the Springfield/immigrants eating pets hoax and just desperately responding "they said it on TV" pic.twitter.com/nHBOBJuDqP
— jordan (@JordanUhl) September 11, 2024
Throughout the debate, Trump was constantly “fact-checked” and interrupted by Muir and Davis, while Harris seemed to get a free pass. The moderators didn’t challenge her on her support for banning fracking or healthcare for illegal immigrants. They also let her repeat the false claim that Trump called Neo-Nazis “very fine people” after the Charlottesville rally, even though this claim has been debunked many times by fact-checkers.
She completely lied about Charlottesville and the ABC moderators did absolutely nothingpic.twitter.com/owPOsrMmhU
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 11, 2024
So, all-in-all, the debate went as expected with ABC campaigning for Harris.