'Suspicion Here Is Really Quite High': Former Clinton Advisor Calls On ABC News To Launch Investigation, Claims Moderators Were 'Rigging The Outcome' Of Debate

On Thursday, former advisor to Bill and Hillary Clinton, Mark Penn, demanded that ABC News launch an investigation into its news division's planning of the presidential debate in Philadelphia earlier this week over fears that the moderators purposefully rigged "the outcome of this debate" by choosing to only fact check President Trump while refusing to do the same for Harris.

Throughout the debate, moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis repeatedly fact-checked Trump on abortion, his comments about Haitian migrants abducting pets in Springfield, Ohio, the level of crime in the country, and his challenges to the 2020 election. Despite the fact-checks from the moderators, they failed to do the same to Harris when she repeated the "fine people on both sides" Charlottesville lie, the lie that Trump said there would be a "bloodbath" if he didn't win the election and the lie that Project 2025 was his policy agenda for another term.

"I actually think they should do a full internal investigation, hire an outside law firm. I don't know how much of this was planned in advance," Penn said about the moderator's biased fact-checking. "I don't know what they told the Harris campaign. I think the day after, suspicion here is really quite high, and I think a review of all their internal texts and emails really should be done by an independent party to find out to what extent they were planning on, in effect, you know, fact-checking just one candidate and in effect, rigging the outcome of this debate. I think the situation demands nothing less than that."

Conservative commentators, such as Megyn Kelly, have argued that higher-ups pressured the ABC News moderators to show favoritism towards Harris, particularly since the head of ABC News, Dana Walden, is close friends with the vice president. 

"I'm ashamed of those moderators at ABC News. They did exactly what their bosses wanted them to do. The person who runs ABC News is a close personal friend of Kamala Harris, that is responsible for Kamala Harris and her husband meeting," Kelly said. "They did Dana Walden's bidding tonight. It was three against one on that debate stage."

"It was a mistake to trust ABC News with this debate," she continued. "Those two moderators tried to sink Donald Trump tonight. They're trying to steal this election. They're openly working to sink him. It was so bad … Their bias against him and toward her, it's going to backfire."

Following the debate, the Trump campaign echoed the same message, characterizing the event as a 3-on-1 contest with the moderators repeatedly asking unfavorable questions of Trump and refusing to fact-check Harris.

BREAKING: Megyn Kelly just went on a rant CALLING OUT the ABC hosts for working with Kamala Harris to SINK Trump and STEAL THE ELECTION.

"I'm ashamed of those moderators at ABC News. They did exactly what their bosses wanted them to do. The person who runs ABC News is a close… pic.twitter.com/81lqt4S2g1

— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) September 11, 2024

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