John,
Donald Trump is pretty upset about losing Tuesday’s debate. After ABC News moderators fact-checked Trump in real-time (including calling him out for suggesting that doctors were murdering infants after birth), Trump and his allies whined and said they were cheating.
Trump even threatened ABC News with an investigation if he should win the Presidency in November.
In June, CNN’s debate between Trump and Biden notably did not include live fact-checking. The result was that Trump told hundreds of lies in a 90-minute span.
Most of the post-debate media coverage focused on Joe Biden, meaning that Trump’s lies went unchecked to tens of millions of voters.
ABC News correctly fixed the error on Tuesday. On everything from abortion to bogus election fraud claims, they weren’t afraid to jump in and call out Trump for lying.
After it was clear that Harris won the debate handily, Trump and his allies used the fact-checking as an excuse to say she and ABC “cheated.” Here’s what we mean:
- Donald Trump said the debate was a three-against-one and, in echoes of his 2020 election lies, called it “a rigged deal.”
- Conservative pundit Megyn Kelly called the moderators “failures,” calling the debate “one of the most biased, unfair debates I have ever seen.”
- Fox News contributor and former George W. Bush staffer Ari Fleischer cut to the chase: "ABC is making a huge mistake trying to fact check this live. They're only proving how biased they are.”
Here’s the thing, John: these claims of cheating aren’t just about trying to spin a bad debate performance. They are about laying the foundation to claim that, if Harris wins the 2024 election, she did it illegitimately. That Democrats and the so-called left-leaning media colluded to steal the election.
That sounds an awful lot like 2020, John. On January 6th, we saw what happens when these lies aren’t corrected.
With polls tight, Trump and the right-wing media are already preparing their audiences to distrust election results by calling the election rigged and accusing Democrats and the media of cheating.
The good news is that this time around, COURIER is already on the ground dismantling their lies and conspiracies at the source. Our reporters in our eleven battleground newsrooms work around the clock to publish fearless, factual news about the issues that matter most, including our elections.
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Thank you,
COURIER