On Thursday’s broadcast of WBUR’s “Here and Now,” NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik stated that ABC debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis could have corrected 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris for falsely saying that her Republican counterpart, former President Donald Trump, claimed there would be a bloodbath if he lost, Harris’ false accusation is “intrinsically fair to how he represents.” And defended ABC’s lack of fact-checking of Harris by saying that “she was much more conventional in sort of overstating things or shading or spinning things as a conventional politician.”
Folkenflik praised the moderators and stated that “they could have chosen from a couple dozen points along the way when it came to Trump, and they really drilled down on a view specific instances.”
Co-host Lisa Mullins then asked, “They didn’t do a lot of fact-checking — or any, I believe, on statements from Kamala Harris, although not everything she said was 100% accurate. Donald Trump and his supporters are complaining of bias. Do they have a point?”
Folkenflik responded, “I would say that there was one moment in particular which I thought could have been pushed back on from Vice President Kamala Harris, and that’s when she talked about how he promised a bloodbath — or claimed that there would be a bloodbath if Biden-Harris, at that time, were re-elected. And it is pretty clear that, in the context of that specific remark, he was talking about what he said the economic effects would be. That would be a pretty fair pushback. But, two things: One, he’s often used rhetoric about bloodshed and violence, frequently, and attached it in all kinds of ways. So, it’s intrinsically fair to how he represents. And the second thing is, she was much more conventional in sort of overstating things or shading or spinning things as a conventional politician. There wasn’t the flood of inaccurate or false statements, or, at times, lies.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
