The time has come for a new presidential commission on debates. Pictured: Vice President Kamala Harris. Photo Credit: Kamala Harris/X.
The Trump-Harris debate held on Sept. 10 reminds us about how badly the legacy media serves the nation. I am not sure how another presidential debate can be held on a national network after the disgraceful and tilted moderating of David Muir and Linsey Davis. What these two Beltway creatures oversaw on the night of the tenth does not explain the inexplicable and unfortunate behaviour of the former president. Still, it signals the end of the present presidential debate format.
FACT-CHECKING
To begin, former president Donald Trump lost the debate and did so badly. He was ill-prepared, easily distracted, and completely undisciplined. He owns his lousy answers, ineffectual replies, and weird meanderings. ABC News, however, did not do democracy or any service to the nation when they decided either ahead of time or in real time to become members of Team Harris. The third question of the night focused on abortion, hardly the third most important issue for Americans but one that Harris was prepared to answer and did so with some effect. When Trump suggested that babies were being executed, he chose his words inelegantly. As Charlie Cooke asked on The Editors, “Why is it that every time a Republican says that late-term or even post-birth abortions happen the press jumps in and says no, no, no, no?” Because pro-choice groups deny it and it sounds so horrible it must be untrue or a right-wing lie, but it isn’t.
And Davis, wanting so badly to be a hero to the leftist elites across the country pounced on this to fact-check Trump, not unlike the attempt Candy Crowley made to correct Mitt Romney in 2012, only to find out she was incorrect and Romney was right. Davis was also wrong. Babies who survive abortions are not executed but the law in Colorado and Minnesota (the home state of Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate) does allow for babies surviving a partial-birth abortion to be set aside, receive no care, and quietly die. That may not be execution, but Davis should not be fact-checking when she does not fully know the legislation nor the nuances of the facts she disputes.
I don’t know when the press decided to become fact-checkers. Trump would have lost this debate regardless. However, the public has a right to expect neutrality in certain roles. A poll checker should be unbiased. The poll worker does not break ties. If you go to court, you expect a judge to be impartial. Why would we think it okay for a judge to take sides? Republicans need to start pushing back more vigorously and stop accepting treatment that puts its candidates behind before they start. Sadly, many see the press’ bias as an immutable fact. Most journalists are of the Left so of course they will favour the Democrat. What a weird and unacceptable standard. I recall the late Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet the Press throwing down Democrats and Republicans under exacting interrogation. When guests prepared for a Sunday morning visit with Russert (a former aide to Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan) they received no relief because they sat left of centre. The roasting began when the camera went on and party affiliation did not matter. I rarely felt disappointed in a Russert interview because I knew he had gone all out to search for the facts. He played no role in correcting his guests. Their answers testified to their integrity and veracity or their lack thereof.
JOURNALIST ACTIVISM
This most recent exhibition in Philadelphia furthered the idea that Washington journalists have agency in protecting democracy instead of seeking the truth. The interest of journalists long ago crossed over into activism. When Dan Rather tried to undermine the bravery of George Herbert Walker Bush, a man who was shot down in shark-infested waters in the Pacific and flew 58 sorties for the Allies in World War Two, the fix was in. That occurred in 1988 and the press has been veering leftward with greater speed every election cycle. Trump became the perfect foil. As a figure of great controversy, he frustrates them. They often take it too far and the debate was an obscene example of interjections, interruptions, and one-sided corrections.
The moderators know Harris has difficulty speaking extemporaneously. In the debate, beginning with the first question, she scurried away from any answer with detail or any statement that could be pinned down. Muir opened with this question: “Vice President Harris, you and President Biden were elected four years ago and your opponent on the stage here tonight often asks his supporters, are you better off than you were four years ago? When it comes to the economy, do you believe Americans are better off than they were four years ago?” Harris proceeded to give an answer that weaved and bobbed but never took up the question. She provided details about her plan going forward but did not respond to Muir’s inquiry. When Trump replied he should have pointed this out but chose to get into the weeds about tariffs and taxes.
Soon the abortion issue took centre stage, once again allowing matters of greater importance to be ignored or take a backseat. Why? It plays to a perceived strength for Harris and puts Trump on the defensive. Debate moderators should be interested in shedding light, not creating heat. Once they promoted abortion it became a priority to ensure Harris and her arguments gained preference, even if Davis had to insert her incorrect fact-check. Later in the debate, Trump pleaded with the moderators to ask Harris about her stance on late-term abortions. Suddenly they were short on words.
MISSED OPPORTUNITY
Trump missed several opportunities to respond to Harris and put her on the defensive. He should have recognized her baiting methods early and adjusted to them. Time after time he should have been asking her why her policies had changed, why she had not taken actions to advocate for these issues if she believed in them, and did she bear responsibility for the policies that had failed. The moderators never pushed Harris on a glaring problem, the matter of Biden. The record shows she defended him when the Hur report came out, she stood by him after the horrible debate performance and has never answered a question about when she first noticed he should not be running for re-election. Expecting news journalists in their present iteration to do any heavy lifting stretches credulity. As recently as Sept. 19, Oprah Winfrey held a love-in with Harris. Still, considering the unprecedented nature of Biden’s disposal and Harris’s leading role as his great defender, how much reporting muscle would be needed to probe about when Harris noticed Biden’s decline, why she thought it appropriate to defend him, and what was her role in ending Biden’s campaign while ensuring she received his anointing as the nominee?
The aftermath of this debate hangs in the air like a rotting carcass. If the Republican Party agrees to terms like this again they deserve whatever insufferable fact-checking, biased questioning, or withering attacks their candidate receives from legacy journalists. They will also be on the hook for the shameless fawning, ingratiating comments, and softball inquiries the moderators grant their Democratic opponent. The time has come for a new presidential commission on debates. Republicans had better become active participants to ensure fairly moderated debates are in America’s future.
Dave Redekop is a retired elementary resource teacher who worked part-time at the St. Catharines Courthouse as a Registrar until being appointed Executive Director at Redeemer Bible Church in October 2023. He has worked on political campaigns since high school and attended university in South Carolina for five years, earning a Master’s in American History with a specialization in Civil Rights. Dave loves reading biographies.
