NEW YORK (AP) — Hours after ABC News announced the rules for next Tuesday’s broadcast, Presidential debates, With the final debate resolved in Donald Trump’s favor, the former president launched an attack on ABC News.
“I think a lot of people are watching to see how mean they are and how unfair they are,” he said at a Fox News rally on Wednesday.
It was a stark reminder that it’s not just Trump and Kamala Harris with big stakes next week: It’s also ABC News and its hosts, David Muir and Lindsey Davis, in the only scheduled debate between the presidential candidates this fall.
Multiple media outlets will broadcast the debates on television and streaming services. But unlike in past years, when presidential debates were organized by bipartisan committees, this one will be entirely separate. Produced by ABC News. It does not include a live audience.
“This is a huge opportunity for ABC News,” said Ben Sherwood, a former president of ABC News who is now publisher and CEO of The Daily Beast. “It’s like hosting, emceeing and producing the Super Bowl of politics. It really gives the network some luster at a time when broadcast television is in decline.”
Of course, that’s if things go well.
ABC sees it as a “huge responsibility”
The ABC debate Set last springAt the time, President Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee. After Biden withdrew, it was unclear whether the debate would go ahead. Harris and Trump ultimately agreed to hold the debate, but doubts about it resurfaced last month after Harris, a Republican, repeatedly criticized ABC.
ABC’s Washington bureau chief, Rick Klein, said the incident had little impact on the network’s plans. “There really wasn’t a lot of disruption on our side,” he said.
Biden and Trump debated on June 27th. It seems like a lifetime ago. The event was hosted by CNN. I remembered more It was less what the network and its hosts, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, did to Biden’s shaky performance that ultimately led to the end of his campaign.
“At the end of the day, this is about helping create a forum for candidates to communicate with the public,” Klein said. “That’s a big responsibility. It’s a sobering responsibility.”
An estimated 51.3 million people tuned in to watch Biden and Trump’s debate in June, but that was before many people were paying serious attention to the election and there was little excitement about a possible rematch in 2020. Tuesday’s debate will undoubtedly reach a larger audience, whether or not it comes anywhere close to the record of 84 million viewers who watched Hillary Clinton and Trump first face off in 2016.
Muir’s “World News Tonight” topped the evening news ratings for eight years, making him virtually the most popular news anchor in America. Many nights, “World News Tonight” draws larger viewers than any other primetime television show.
Part of Mr. Muir’s success is ABC’s efforts to present him as apolitical. Tuesday’s audience is expected to be its biggest ever, including among people who barely know Mr. Muir because they look elsewhere for news. And it’s a political event in polarized times.
Davis, who hosts ABC’s nightly streaming news show, has filled in for Muir and has moderated presidential debates in the past, is a relatively unknown figure, and many will be seeing her for the first time on Tuesday.
Though more complicated under the Trump administration, the role of a debate moderator is a lot like that of a baseball umpire: If the audience doesn’t notice them, that means they’ve done a good job. If Messrs. Muir and Davis are prominent on the news Wednesday morning, that’s probably not a good sign.
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“This is a real minefield,” said Tom Bettag, a former ABC News “Nightline” producer. “Just ask Chris Wallace.”
Wallace is seen as a respected and fair-minded figure, and worked for Fox News when he moderated the first Biden-Trump debate in 2020, so “the Trump campaign couldn’t accuse him of being a liberal hack,” Bettag said. “And that’s still the case today.” It blew up pretty badly. Trump’s frequent interruptions frustrated Biden and led to criticism that Wallace had lost control of the night.
Moderators are there to “facilitate”
That’s unlikely to happen this year. Rules of discussion They are asking for microphones to be muted while their opponents are speaking, something the Trump campaign has called for, as it feels the interruptions are irritating to many voters.
Harris at an open mic Most memorable interaction During a debate with Vice President Mike Pence in 2020, she said, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking,” when Pence interrupted one of her answers — a moment many women can relate to in business situations with men.
Bash and Tapper occasionally tried to bring questions back to Trump or Biden when they dodged them during CNN’s June debate, but they did not correct the lies and false statements that were highlighted in the post-debate analysis. Klein did not commit to the same policy, but said, “This is a debate between them, and we are there to facilitate the conversation.”
Even before his appearance on Fox News this week, President Trump had repeatedly criticized ABC News, despite having agreed to appear on two ABC News debates.
He has specifically targeted the network’s political journalists, George Stephanopoulos and Jonathan Karl. filed a defamation lawsuit In response to reporter Stephanopoulos’ comments about Trump be held accountable ABC said Stephanopoulos was not involved in preparing the debate.
Trump also said: Reported Friendships Harris and Dana Walden, a top executive at ABC parent Walt Disney Co., whose oversight authority was recently extended to ABC News, have agreed to a deal. ABC says Walden has no say in any news reporting decisions.
To some extent, Trump’s comments can be seen as an attempt to “play the umpire,” appealing to his press-hating supporters. The nightmare scenario for ABC would be that Trump lashes out on Tuesday if he feels things are not going well.
“From our perspective, we just have to do our job and do it as well as we can,” Klein said.
He did not provide details about how ABC’s preparations are going, such as what characters are being assigned to play Harris and Trump in the mock debates.
Betag, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland who is teaching a class this fall on presidential election coverage, has been involved in such preparations before and advises Muir and Davis to take a deep breath.
“The most important thing is to stay calm, but it’s hard to do that because there’s a good chance you’re going to get yelled at,” he said. “Keeping your voice down and staying calm is really important.”
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David Bauder writes for The Associated Press. http://x.com/dbauder
