Conservatives cry foul as ABC fact-checks debate

• That decision played to Trump's strengths but kept CNN from being labeled as biased.

Zoom in: Moderate and hard-right conservatives attacked ABC Tuesday night, arguing the network didn't fact-check Vice President Kamala Harris to the same extent as Trump.

• "The moderators might as well be on the DNC payroll. This is ridiculous. This is the worst moderated debate in history," Sen. Lindsey Graham wrote on X.
• "These moderators are a disgraceful failure and this is one of the most biased, unfair debates I have ever seen. Shame on you ABC," wrote former Fox News and NBC host Megyn Kelly, who now hosts her own SiriusXM show.
• "This is not a debate, this is public show trial where the judge, jury, and executioner is ABC News," Talking Points USA founder Charlie Kirk wrote.
• "ABC's moderators are a disgrace to their profession," Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro posted on X.
• "ABC is making a huge mistake trying to fact check this live. They're only proving how biased they are," said former George W. Bush White House press secretary and Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer.

Zoom in: Trump's campaign was quick to seize on the narrative that ABC was to blame for the former president's performance.

• "I thought that was my best Debate, EVER, especially since it was THREE ON ONE!," Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social.
• The campaign's "war room" account on X repeatedly wrote and reposted commentary that blamed ABC for Trump's performance.

The other side: Liberal commentators and anti-Trump conservatives lauded ABC, arguing Trump lied more brazenly. (CNN's fact checker Daniel Dale in a preliminary count estimated that Trump made 33 false claims, compared to one by Harris.)

• "Best moderators of a debate in a long time," wrote Sarah Longwell, publisher of the anti-Trump, center-right blog The Bulwark.
• "ABC's moderators are doing a good job," said the site's editor Bill Kristol.
• "ABC moderators doing an *excellent* job," wrote MSNBC's Chris Hayes.
• "I will say it ABC moderators have exceeded expectations. They are fact checking and confronting. Shows how abysmal CNN was," Washington Post anti-Trump columnist Jennifer Rubin wrote.

The big picture: Real-time fact-checking became a political flashpoint during the Trump era, with conservatives arguing news and tech companies used fact-checking as a weapon against Trump.

• "Like it or not, David Muir arguing with Trump will fuel the narrative that these moderators are biased against him," wrote pollster Frank Luntz. (Muir had fact-checked Trump for his baseless claim that Haitian immigrants are eating their pets in Springfield, Ohio.)
• Some conservatives made a point to fact-check ABC's fact checks — including one where Davis pushed back on Trump's abortion claims, saying "There is no state where it is legal in this country to kill a baby after its born."
• "As expected in the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, ABC News botched a fact check to try and cover for Harris and the Democratic Party's radicalism," The Washington Examiner, a right-leaning outlet, posted on X.
• "HERE is a fact check on babies left to die after surviving abortion in Tim Walz's Minnesota," wrote former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, while linking to an article from The Daily Signal, a conservative publication.

The bottom line: Conservative criticism of ABC's fact checks likely won't move the needle with undecided voters, but they help Democrats position Trump as being on the defense post-debate.

• "I think Democrats feeling exhilarated and conservatives yelling about the moderators is a good sign," wrote former Obama White House staffer and Crooked Media co-founder Jon Lovett.

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