As Trump and Harris argue, ABC moderators struggle to conduct a debate in a polarized country

The ABC News anchors were great. No, actually they were a “shameful failure.” They interrupted Kamala Harris too many times. No, actually they unfairly corrected Donald Trump.

This is the controversial tenor of the 2024 election season. And so it was on Tuesday night at Trump and Harris' first – and possibly only – debate.

The difficulty of conducting a presidential debate in a polarized country is demonstrated by the fact that ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis checked and corrected Trump's statements four times on Tuesday and were subsequently angrily attacked by the former president and his supporters.

Shortly after Trump left the stage in Philadelphia, he sent out a message on his social media platform: “I think that was my best debate EVER, especially because it was THREE AGAINST ONE!”

Muir and Davis moderated what is expected to be the only debate between the former president and the incumbent vice president. They asked about economic policy, the war in Ukraine, abortion, the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 and changes in Harris' stance since her presidential candidacy in 2020.

In the end, according to a New York Times count, Trump had 43 minutes and 3 seconds of speaking time, while Harris had 37 minutes and 41 seconds.

Opinions on reporting were a political litmus test

From the start, the stakes in this debate were high, not only because of the looming election itself, but also because the last presidential debate in June — between Trump and incumbent President Joe Biden, whose performance was widely criticized — set off a series of events that ended several weeks later with Biden's withdrawal from the race and Harris's entry.

Opinions on how ABC handled the final debate on Tuesday were, by and large, a Rorschach test to determine how supporters of both sides felt about the way the debate played out. MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes sent a message on X saying that the ABC moderators did an “excellent” job – to which conservative commentator Ben Shapiro responded, “That's how you know they're utter sh*t.”

While CNN refrained from correcting any false statements made by the candidates during Trump's debate with Biden in June, ABC instead questioned Trump's statements on abortion, immigration, the 2020 election and violent crime.

During a discussion on abortion, Trump repeated his oft-repeated claim that Democrats support killing babies after birth. Davis said, “There is no state in the country where it is legal to kill a baby after birth.”

Muir pointed out that after years of not publicly admitting his loss to Biden in the 2020 election, Trump recently admitted defeat on three separate occasions. Trump responded that he meant these recent statements sarcastically.

“I didn’t notice the sarcasm,” Muir said.

After suggesting that crime had increased during the Biden administration, Muir pointed out that violent crime had decreased during that time period, leading to a dispute with the former president. ABC also noted that there was no evidence this happened after Trump repeated a debunked report that immigrants were killing and eating pets in Ohio.

The ABC moderators did not correct any of Harris's statements.

“Could they have done more? Yes,” said Angie Drodnic Holan, director of the Poynter Institute's international fact-checking network, in an interview. “Did they do enough? I would say yes. The alternative would have been nothing.”

Towards the end of the debate, CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale said on social media: “Trump was appallingly dishonest and Harris mostly (though not entirely) stuck to the facts.”

Both candidates did not answer some questions

As is often the case in debates, certain questions from the moderators often went unanswered. For example, Harris was asked to address Trump's criticism that the U.S. Justice Department had been used as a weapon against him. She did not. She also dodged questions about changes to her previous positions on certain issues. Muir asked Trump twice if he wanted Ukraine to win its war against Russia, and he did not respond.

The split-screen views of both candidates told different stories. Trump often looked angry during some of Harris' statements, or smiled while avoiding eye contact with his opponent. Harris looked at her opponents several times, often confused, sometimes openly amused, sometimes shaking her head.

Even as the debate was underway, anger flared online over ABC's handling of the evening, and it quickly became the topic of conversation.

“These moderators are a shameful failure and this is one of the most biased and unfair debates I have ever seen,” conservative commentator Megyn Kelly posted on X. “Shame on ABC.”

Responding to online critics who complained that ABC had rigged the maps in Harris' favor, Atlantic writer James Surowiecki wrote, “They 'rigged' the debate by leaving (Trump) hanging himself with his own incoherent ramblings.”

“It was like a 4Chan post came to life,” said CNN's Jake Tapper.

On Fox News Channel, moderator Martha MacCallum said after the debate that Harris was “never really held accountable.” Commentator Brit Hume agreed, but said something else was at play.

“Make no mistake,” Hume said. “Trump had a bad night.”

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