Former President Donald Trump showed up for a traditional political debate Tuesday night, but he instead found himself in the middle of a 90-minute ambush to boost Kamala Harris.
Working as a team, ABC hosts David Muir and Linsey Davis propped up Harris and repeatedly tried to vanquish Trump by talking over him, cutting him off, and asking bizarre questions they did not ask Harris. At one point, Davis jumped in for Harris and offered a rebuttal to one of Trump’s comments on abortion, a move beyond the scope of a moderator.
They allowed Harris more time to respond and followed her when she veered off topic, but gave Trump no such breaks. It was not a debate, but a campaign contribution. That’s not a big surprise from either moderator, as Muir hosts the most Trump-negative network news evening broadcast and Davis has a long track record of promoting Democrat talking points including stolen election claims from Hillary Clinton.
The moderators wasted time rehashing the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol and pressed Trump on whether he really believes he won the 2020 election, at times putting words in his mouth. They barely touched on the economy, a top voter issue, and not once did the moderators acknowledge the attempted assassination of Trump. Nor did they question Harris about the lax security the Biden-Harris administration provided for Trump on the campaign trail that contributed to the shooting.
In broadcasting, where advertising is sold by the second, time really is money. A 30-second commercial in the February Super Bowl cost $7 million.
CBS charged $225,000 for a half-minute ad during a 2016 debate between former President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. CNN sold ad packages for the June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden for a minimum of $1.5 million per package, which included two 30-second ads, plus a few online ads.
It’s not immediately known how much ABC charged advertisers for time in Tuesday night’s debate, but the bigger the audience, the more the broadcaster can charge for each precious second. We can be confident ABC charged top dollar.
That means the shamefully biased minutes the moderators, Muir and Davis, contributed to the Harris campaign were worth big bucks. Let’s rough out the math to see approximately how much Harris benefited.
Using the lowball figure of $225,000 for a half-minute charged back in the 2016 debate, we won’t factor in inflation, but we will consider the entire 90 minutes. Again, these are only rough figures.
Break 90 minutes into half minutes and you get 180 ad segments, multiplied by $225,000. That comes to a contribution to the Harris Walz campaign of at least $40.5 million. Even selecting only the minutes the moderators intervened on behalf of Harris would yield millions of dollars in benefits to her campaign.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) might consider it an “in-kind contribution,” which is a non-monetary contribution to a campaign.
The FEC could consider the debate a “coordinated communication,” which can be a type of in-kind donation that is made in consultation with the candidate. We know both campaigns spoke with ABC to arrange the debate, so the communication lines were open for such an arrangement.
Or it could be an “independent expenditure,” which is an expenditure for a communication, such as a television advertisement, that advocates for the election or defeat of a candidate and is not made in cooperation with the candidate.
Either way, $40.5 million far exceeds contribution limits. Plus, corporations are barred from making such contributions.
The so-called debate was a total disservice to serious American voters who wanted to get an honest look at both candidates. ABC put its thumb on the scale, and that is more than bad journalism. The public has no reason to trust this former news outlet ever again. This dog and pony show has killed ABC’s credibility.
The company should face scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission, which requires television and radio broadcasters to provide equal opportunities to opposing candidates in federal elections. There are some exceptions for certain types of news programming, including debates. But this was a DINO — a debate in name only.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
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