As the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump neared, the Media Research Center continued its ref-working in a Sept. 10 post by Jorge Bonilla:
With the much-hyped presidential debate less than 24 hours away the Regime Media’s coverage are converging along similar lines, in a manner not unlike a group of Sunday congregants singing from the same hymnal.
Watch as debate co-moderator David Muir of ABC, now documented as the most pro-Harris, delivers his standalone introduction which could be a brief of the broader report:
[…]Having concluded his minute-long introduction, Muir tosses to Mary Bruce. Bruce then goes into her report, and lays out a set of common themes. Harris landed in Philadelphia, Harris is feeling strong, Harris did extensive rehearsal, Trump said some incendiary thing.
Muir then tosses to Rachel Scott, for more on Trump’s debate prep. Muir then tosses to Rick Klein for poll numbers. And then a lengthy David Muir outro.
Over at CBS, Weijia Jiang echoed these same themes.
[…]There is broad consensus that Harris is presenting herself as a change candidate, which is difficult to do while being the incumbent vice president. NBC is the only network to cover this angle.
Other than that, the Regime Media continue to sing Kamala Harris’s praises while looking at the same page of the same hymnal.
No, Jorge, Muir has not been “documented as the most pro-Harris” anchor — that’s based on a bogus study by your co-worker, so you’re apparently obligated to promote it no matter how bogus.
Nicholas Fondacaro whined:
In the run up to the first and possibly only debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris Tuesday night, CNN’s panel of purported journalists tacitly admitted that they favored debate rules that they thought favored Democrats. In this instance, they were collectively whining about ABC News carrying over CNN’s debate rule of muting the candidates’ microphones to prevent interruptions; something CNN was now against since the Harris campaign was against it.
Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, the moderators of CNN’s debate, essentially admitted that CNN created the muted mic rule at President Biden’s request because they thought it was helpful to the Democratic candidate. But now that it’s proven to hurt the Democrat, they were suddenly against their own rule:
Curtis Houck served up more ref-working by citing his employer’s bogus “study”:
With World News Tonight anchor David Muir co-moderating Tuesday’s presidential debate, co-hosting duties for the hour-long pre-game show fell to This Week co-hosts and longtime ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl and Martha Raddatz alongside chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce and senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott. Simply put, it was a disaster of the highest proportions.
From leftist fear-mongering to dismissal of the issues, ABC bolstered why we found their flagship evening newscast to be 100 percent positive toward Kamala Harris and 93 percent negative Kamala Harris. In essence, they set the table for what would be the worst presidential debate of all time that would transpire with Muir and ABC News Live anchor Linsey Davis.
Houck went on to dismiss Trump’s refusal to admit he lost in 2020 and his incitement of the Capitol riot as a result of that denial as “pesky issues” that don’t matter, which also included Trump’s hostile appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists (which, of course, the MRC defended).
After the debate — in which Harris did well and Trump was caught spouting more lies — the MRC predictably continued to lash out at ABC for pointing out those lies. Fondacaro huffed:
While the pundits argue over how the candidates performed Tuesday night, NewsBusters can say that the performance of the ABC moderators was abysmal as they forced former President Trump into a three-versus-one fight. The night was filled with contentious moments where the moderators took on Trump with slanted/combative questions and targeted him with six fact-checks, evening inviting Vice President Harris to take part in one. Meanwhile, Harris received ZERO fact-checks.
The first question to Trump came from World News Tonight anchor David Muir, who took Harris’s claims about Trump trade policy as fact and ridiculously asked him if he thought Americans could “afford” a 20 percent “national sales tax” he wasn’t proposing:
[…]Of course, there was a question about January 6. “You did send out tweets but it was more than two hours before you sent out that video message telling your supporters to go home. Is there anything you regret about what you did on that day?” Muir sniped.
A few of their so-called ‘fact-checks’ lacked facts, making their actions worse than those of former CNN moderator Candy Crowley.
[…]At one point, Muir invited Harris to take part in a fact check of her involvement with Ukraine negotiations; despite the fact she was about to get time to respond to him anyway.
And yet, Muir and Davis opted to not fact-check Harris on anything. By NewsBusters’ count there were at least 5 major and easily falsifiable claims made by the Vice President: She peddled the ‘very fine people on both sides ‘ hoax, the “bloodbath” hoax, tied Project 2025 to Trump, lied about Trump’s position on IVF, and falsely claimed no American troops where currently deployed to war zones (Iraq, Syria, the Red Sea, etc.).
In fact, the “very fine people” statement was not a hoax, and the “bloodbath hoax” was itself a hoax manufactured by the MRC.
Fondacaro needed a second post to spew all his rage about the debate not helping Trump:
ABC News could not be happier with how their three vs one presidential debate turned out, Tuesday night. Immediately following the conclusion of the event, the network’s panel of purported journalists were eager to show their excitement talk up Harris, who one host dubbed “the candidate of hope,” even touting a handshake she initiated.
“It’s a lively debate from the economy, to abortion, to Afghanistan. That had it all. And it was historic, Jon Karl, fiery,” boasted co-host Martha Raddatz. Chief Washington correspondent Jon Karl struggled to find the word, proclaiming: “Wow. Wow. Wow. That was quite a debate.”
Karl and Raddatz were joined by chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce, as the three of them gushed about Harris walking across the stage to shake Trump’s hand, and how it was all part of some elaborate plan she had:
[…]Further, Raddatz opined about “what Kamala Harris wanted to do was be the candidate of hope, the candidate of the future,” while “Donald Trump seemed angry” and was falling for all of Harris’s traps:
Fondacaro didn’t refute anything the commentators said.
Bonilla served up similar ranting about coverage of the debate on another channel:
If the leader of North Korea were to give some sort of speech or participate in some multilateral event, one could reasonably expect the North Korean state media to gush to its captive audience about the Dear Leader’s muscular and virile performance. This is on par with MSNBC’s analysis at the conclusion of the debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Except, perhaps, that the North Koreans might be more restrained in their gushery. MSNBC began praising Dear Comrade Kamala as soon as ABC cut the feed. Lawrence O’Donnell praised Harris for shaking Trump’s hand.
[…]No one should be shocked that MSNBC, as charter members of the Regime Media, marveled at ABC’s moderation of the debate which, it has to be said, WE WARNED YOU ABOUT. Naturally, the panel gushed over David Muir and Linsey Davis’s moderation which was so awful, one-sided and intrusive that Candy Crowley is now officially off the hook as worst moderator in recent memory, if not ever:
Bonilla is completely oblivious to the fact that in his reflexive bashing of channels for not being as far-right as Fox News and slavish devoting of right-wing, prop Trump talking points, he sounds much more like “North Korean state media” than the channels he’s bashing.
A couple hours later, Bonilla targeted yet another channel:
The Regime Media regimed very hard whilst covering the second first presidential debate of this election cycle, between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. The Tiffany Network was no exception.
[…]All in all, CBS was exultant about Harris’s performance on the debate stage, and made no effort whatsoever to modulate that…joy.
Bonilla, of course, is sour that his guy did so poorly — but he’s not going to mention that this is all performative outrage because he and the MRC will become “Regime Media” if Trump wins and he is fake-regiming very hard in anticipation of that.
And just as he did after CNN’s interview with Harris, Christy wailed that ABC almost completely ignored the laundry list of biased, right-wing questions he demanded that the moderators ask Harris:
On Friday, we published a list of 25 questions that ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis should ask Vice President Kamala Harris at Tuesday’s debate with former President Donald Trump. However, the duo would ask only two of them.
On the good side of the list, Davis asked, “I do want to ask, would you support any restrictions on a woman’s right to an abortion?”
Much later, Davis would ask, “In 2017, you supported Bernie Sanders’ proposal to do away with private insurance and create a government-run health care system. Two years later, you proposed a plan that included a private insurance option. What is your plan today?”
ABC also rehashed Harris’s past positions on the border and fracking that were on our previous list of questions that CNN’s Dana Bash should ask Harris.
The bad came when Muir asked, “I want to get your thoughts on support for Ukraine in this moment. But also, as commander-in-chief, if elected, how would you deal with Vladimir Putin, and would it be any different from what we’re seeing from President Biden?”
Curiously, Christy never demanded that any specific questions be asked of Trump during the debate. Wonder why…