In a shocking incident that occurred as part of the Tuesday, October 1 vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News between the Democratic and Republican vice presidential candidates, the debate co-moderators were up to the tricks many expected of them. Particularly, at one point, Senator and 2024 Trump running mate JD Vance had to fact-check the fact-checkers and call out co-moderator Margaret Brennan when she, against the rules of the debate, fact-checked him. Megyn Kelly obliterated the network in a duo of posts on X (formerly Twitter) over the incident.
CBS had announced before the debate that moderators would not fact-check claims during the debate. Instead, the network said it would utilize live fact-checking on its website, so that the candidates would not be interrupted. During the debate, however, Brennan interrupted Vance, saying, “Just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected status.”
Sen. Vance then shot back at Brennan, snapping, “The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check. And since you are fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.” Sen. Vance then described the actual legal process for obtaining the legal status Brennan described, connecting it to a Harris-backed immigration policy.
Brennan talked over him and snidely said, “Senator, we have so much we have to get to, thank you so much for explaining the legal process.” Then, the network cut off Sen. Vance’s microphone, and Brennan, as he tried to explain his position, said, “The audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut.”
It was that incident that sparked Megyn Kelly’s fury on X. In her first, very angry post about what happened during the incident involving Sen. Vance, Margaret Brennan, claims about Haitians, and the microphone, Kelly cursed at CBS and asked how it dares to act in such a way. She wrote, “F you CBS – how DARE YOU.”
Then, posting a second tweet about the matter as a comment on her first post, Kelly skewered CBS yet further for how it was treating Vance during the debate and noted that Vance had, despite the fact-check and mic cut, managed to put the moderators in their place. She wrote, “Tried to fact check. JD put you in your place. You WONT HIM FIGHT YOU AND YOU WONT LET THEM DEBATE.” Watch the incident to which she was referring here:
A commenter on Kelly’s post noted that the co-moderators seemed to be in a habit of breaking the rules to attack Vance, saying, “Margaret, just tried fact-checking again, trying to describe the the Haitians in Springfield are mostly legal. Thank God. JD advance stood up and told her that she’s breaking the rules by fact-checking. They’ve done it four or five times already. And then she cuts off their mics saying we don’t have time. But thank you for correcting us. Thank goodness. JD Vance is strong enough to stand up to them, but this is why Republicans should never ever debate on the Democrat control networks. Because they cheat.”
Another commenter wrote, noting that Walz was lying and not being attacked by the moderators for it, “Walz: ‘President Trump will implement a ‘20% sales tax,’ leading to inflation and a recession’. This is a pure lie. President Trump already slapped tariffs on foreign goods during his first term in office, and we had nonexistent inflation. President Trump’s tariffs were so successful that Kamala’s administration was forced to keep them in place.”
Another commenter noted that the network seemed to have, in their opinion, cut off Vance’s mic because he was putting the moderators in their place with his comments on the matter. That commenter said, “They had to cut JD Vance’s mic because he was destroying the moderators. Love it. Makes the moderators look pathetic.”
Megyn Kelly, commenting on how the debate went in a reaction video, said, “The moderators were not much better. They were a little better than ABC News.” She then added, “But JD Vance put on a master class in how to handle biased moderators and a lying opponent, and it was the thing of beauty. It’s beautiful.” She next said, “Every Republican or Republican voter or person who in this case, is rooting for Trump knows exactly what I am feeling right now, which is just, thank God, just listening to a guy go out there and know how to raise the right point in response to the right questions, to not take the moderator’s bullshit. It was really cleansing. It was just you never see it. ”
Kelly went on to say, “It’s just so great to see the moderators are gross. Margaret Brennan, not only do you desperately need some bronzer.” Then, turning from insults to criticism of how Brennan ran the debate, Kelly said, “You need to understand how to moderate a fair debate when you have half the country who’s rooting for the other guy? She didn’t even attempt to be fair. I mean, I’m going to utter words I never thought I would utter. I preferred Nora O’Donnell.”
Watch her sound off on what happened during the debate here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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