In the aftermath of the controversial ABC News presidential debate, television personality Dr. Phil McGraw recently hosted a segment to gauge the general public’s opinion on the event’s outcome. According to the opinion of those who participated in “Dr. Phil’s Post-Debate Townhall,” the vast majority believe the debate was biased against former President Donald Trump.
Conservative critics have blasted ABC News after it was apparent that the moderators, David Muir and Linsay Davis, showed favoritism toward Vice President Kamala Harris. Throughout the night, Donald Trump was incessantly fact-checked by the moderators, while Harris was not held to the same standard. Many claim that Harris was given softball questions and that her statements were not scrutinized as Trump’s were.
A TikTok clip from Dr. Phil’s event has circulated across social media with the caption, “75% of this audience believes the 2024 presidential debate was bias and that ABC favored Kamala with softball questions.” One audience member told McGraw, “I actually think that it wasn’t fair for the exact opposite reason. I think that Trump was actually thinking versus Kamala kept speaking over him in the alternate light.”
Dr. Phil followed up, “So okay, and how about the moderators? Do you think they were being fair?” The man replied, “I don’t just because I feel like Trump kept getting asked harder questions versus Kamala kind of got thrown softballs easier to answer.” Polling the rest of the audience McGraw asked, “Okay, how many of you agree with that aspect?”
As the support toward this opinion was nearly ubiquitous in his audience, Dr. Phil remarked, “Oh wow, that’s almost everybody. Well, not everybody, but 75% of you.” The implications of Dr. Phil’s town hall event and other research into the opinions of the general public suggest there is a stark contrast with the opinion of the liberal media pundit class, which unanimously concluded that Harris won the debate.
Therefore, if the vast majority of Americans believe the debate was overtly rigged against Trump, the Harris-Walz campaign likely will not benefit from the debate performance. The American Tribune recently reported on other criticism against the ABC News debate from Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., the co-founder and co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, an unquestionably qualified individual to weigh in on the matter.
“What really shocked me last night was the way the moderators handled it. You know, we always explain to our moderators — and we’ve done 33 of these debates, starting back in 1988 — that their job is to be facilitators. They’re not supposed to get involved themselves,” Fahrenkopf said, calling out the apparent bias of the moderators.
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“A debate is between the candidates, not a debate between the candidate and the moderators. And these moderators, as far as I was concerned, it was the worst performance that I’ve seen,” the presidential debate expert added. “I don’t know what their thoughts were, but they clearly were oversized, I think, on the way they treated the former president and the way they treated the present vice president. I think they bent backwards to help her.”
Watch the clip from Dr. Phil’s town hall below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.