Not only for Harris and Trump, there is a lot at stake in next week's debate. ABC News

NEW YORK – Hours after ABC News announced the rules for next Tuesday’s presidential debate, deciding a final argument in Donald Trump’s favor, the former president went on the attack – against ABC News.

“I think a lot of people are going to watch to see how mean and unfair they are,” he said at a Fox News town hall meeting on Wednesday.

It was a stark reminder that Trump and Kamala Harris aren't the only ones with a lot at stake in Philadelphia next week. The same goes for ABC News and moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis at the only scheduled debate between the presidential candidates this fall.

Several networks will televise and stream the debate. But unlike in previous years, when the presidential debates were organized by a bipartisan commission, this is an ABC News production only. There will be no live audience.

“This is a huge opportunity for ABC News,” said Ben Sherwood, former president of ABC News and now publisher and CEO of the Daily Beast. “It's like hosting and producing the Super Bowl of politics. It adds luster to the network at a time when television is in decline.”

Of course, this only applies if everything goes well.

ABC sees this as a “great responsibility”

The ABC debate was scheduled last spring when President Joe Biden was the likely Democratic nominee. When he dropped out, it was unclear whether the debate would take place. Harris and Trump eventually gave the green light, although repeated Republican criticism of ABC last month raised questions again.

The whole thing had little impact on ABC's schedule, said Rick Klein, the network's Washington bureau chief. “There really wasn't much uproar on our side,” he said.

Biden and Trump debated on June 27—which seems like a lifetime ago. That event was broadcast by CNN, though it is remembered more for Biden's shaky performance that eventually led him to end his campaign than for anything the network or its moderators, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, did.

“Ultimately, it's about providing candidates with a forum to communicate with the public,” Klein said. “It's a big responsibility. It's a responsibility that requires humility.”

An estimated 51.3 million people watched Biden and Trump in June. But that was before many people were truly tuned in to the election, and the potential rematch of the 2020 campaign was met with little enthusiasm. Tuesday's debate will almost certainly reach more people, whether or not it approaches the record audience of 84 million for the first Hillary Clinton-Trump clash in 2016.

Muir's “World News Tonight” has topped the ratings on the evening news for eight years, making it virtually America's favorite news anchor. On many nights, “World News Tonight” has a larger audience than anything else on prime-time television.

One secret of his success is ABC's efforts to give him an apolitical image. On Tuesday he will have his biggest audience ever – including people who barely know Muir because they look elsewhere for news – at a political event in polarized times.

Davis is less well-known but anchors ABC's nightly newscast, fills in for Muir and has moderated presidential nomination debates in the past. Many will see her in action for the first time Tuesday.

Although the role of debate moderators has been more complicated in the Trump years, it is often similar to that of a baseball umpire — showing that they've done a good job even if you don't really notice them. If Muir or Davis figure prominently in Wednesday morning's stories, that's probably not a good sign.

“It's an absolute minefield,” said Tom Bettag, former producer of ABC News' “Nightline.” “Ask Chris Wallace.”

Wallace was highly respected, considered nonpartisan, and worked at Fox News in 2020 when he moderated the first Biden-Trump debate, “so the Trump people couldn't accuse him of being a liberal scribbler,” Bettag said. “And yet the whole thing fell apart.” Trump's frequent interruptions angered Biden and led to criticism that Wallace had lost control of the evening.

The moderators will be “there to facilitate”

This year, that's less likely because debate rules require a candidate's microphone to be muted when his opponent is speaking. Trump's campaign pushed for this because interruptions turn off many voters.

An open mic led to one of Harris' most memorable exchanges in her 2020 debate with Vice President Mike Pence. “Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking,” she said as Pence interrupted one of her answers, a moment many women can relate to in business situations with men.

While Bash and Tapper occasionally tried to bring Trump or Biden back to the questions when the politicians dodged in the CNN debate in June, they did not correct lies or misstatements, many of which were pointed out in post-debate analysis. While Klein would not commit to the same policy, he said that “it's a debate between them and we're there to facilitate the conversation.”

Even before his appearance on Fox News this week, Trump had repeatedly criticized ABC News, even though he had twice agreed to take part in a debate on the network.

He is specifically targeting political network journalists George Stephanopoulos and Jonathan Karl. The former president filed a defamation suit against Stephanopoulos last spring because of the journalist's comments about Trump being held liable for the sexual abuse of advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. ABC has said Stephanopoulos was not involved in the preparation of the debate.

Trump also spoke about the alleged friendship between Harris and Dana Walden, a top executive at ABC parent company Walt Disney Co. whose oversight was recently expanded to include ABC News. ABC said Walden was not involved in any news reporting decisions.

In some ways, Trump's comments can be seen as a “referee maneuver,” or an appeal to supporters who don't like the press. A nightmare scenario for ABC would be if Trump were to lash out on Tuesday if he felt things weren't going well for him.

“From our perspective, we just have to do our job and do it as well as we can,” Klein said.

He declined to provide details about ABC's preparations, such as which people were chosen to represent Harris or Trump in the mock debates.

Bettag, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland who is teaching a course on covering the presidential campaign this fall, has been involved in these preparations before. He advises Muir and Davis to take a deep breath.

“The most important thing is to stay calm, which is difficult because they're probably going to be shouted at,” he said. “It's really important to try to speak softly and stay calm.”

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David Bauder writes about media for AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder