Trump Should Not Agree To Another Legacy Media-Moderated Debate | Bobby Burack

Quinnipiac University called the 2024 presidential race "too close" to name a favorite. On Tuesday, Quinnipiac's polling data found that 48% of likely voters support Donald Trump and 47% support Kamala Harris.

Nothing new there. Most polling agencies agree: the election is a toss-up.

Perhaps more importantly, the study found that 64% of likely voters say they want to see a second debate between Trump and Harris. You can read the full report here.

Trump has said he does not plan to participate in a second debate. On Saturday, he told rally-goers in North Carolina that he would not accept an Oct. 23 debate invitation from CNN because it was "too late" and "voting has already started."

While Trump is technically the one holding up another debate – Harris accepted the CNN invitation – he reminded his followers on Truth Social that Harris "was a no-show at the Fox Debate, and refused to do NBC & CBS."

He's right.

Harris would not agree to a debate with Fox News in September. She wanted the debate to be on home turf. And home turf was on Sept. 10 on ABC. The debate felt like a 3-on-1 ambush with moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis clearly in Harris' corner. 

The moderators fact-checked Trump five times and interrupted him 11 times. They did not fact-check Harris even once and interrupted her only once.

As a result, Harris' lies about Trump's stance on a national abortion ban, the "bloodbath" hoax, and the "very fine people" hoax went unchecked.

Put simply, it would do Trump no good to sign up for another debate in a similar setting. 

The other mainstream news networks are no different from ABC in terms of allegiance to the Democratic Party. Analysts at the Media Research Center (MRC) reviewed 69 minutes of campaign coverage on the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts after the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump and found that 95% of the coverage of Trump was "negative."

CNN, to its credit, stayed out of the way during the debate in June. But that was a debate between Trump and Biden, whom CNN needed to test to see if he was still capable of running for president. 

The result: he wasn't. 

Therefore, it is unlikely CNN would take the same moderate approach to a debate with Harris a month before the election. CNN is just as googly eyes for Harris as ABC and MSNBC are.

Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris, via Gok

Frankly, a Fox News debate would best serve voters.

Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum are more objective news anchors than any of the lead anchors on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, or MSNBC. David Muir, Jake Tapper, Lester Holt, Norah O'Donnell, Savannah Guthrie, and Rachel Maddow have all established themselves as avowed anti-Trump commentators. 

Baier and MacCallum have not shown favoritism in either direction. In fact, some Trump voters criticized Baier for complimenting Harris for her performance during the post-show coverage of the first debate.

If Trump and Harris truly want to debate on equal terms, Baier and MacCallum are the best option.

But, of course, Harris does not want that. She has been running from the interviews since she was installed as the Democratic candidate in July. There is virtually no chance she will agree to debate on mutual grounds.

Alas, either Trump agrees to another debate on enemy territory or Americans do not get another debate.

Prediction: American voters do not get another debate.

There are consequences of the hyper-partisan makeover of the legacy media. The inability to put on honest presidential debates is one of them. 

The press has overwhelmingly leaned left since John F. Kennedy assumed the White House in 1961. However, the overt nature of the industry's bias has never been as shameless as it is today.

Previously, ABC and NBC could at least conduct themselves respectfully during a debate. Those days are gone. ABC made it abundantly clear on debate night.

In many ways, Kamala Harris' campaign is a product of a deceptive media hoax in which the so-called journalists have completely repackaged the vice president.

"It turns out that Trump isn’t just running against Harris — he is running against liberal media and cultural institutions that are building a cocoon around the vice-president, creating a Kamala character the nation can see in the Oval Office," said New York Post columnist Kirsten Fleming. "This election is really between Trump and the cultural institutions that are myth-building Kamala."

Myth-building, indeed. 

Journalists and television anchors act as if it is their moral duty to stop Donald Trump from winning the election – and will do so at all costs, including downplaying two assassination attempts on the former president.

Unfortunately, we aren't sure if that will change by 2028. 

Trump says he will not run in four years if he loses. He can't run again if he wins. But while Trump says he will go away, Trumpism surely won't. 

The most Trumpian GOP candidate, the candidate Trump will endorse in 2028, is likely to win the GOP primary. And the press will cover that candidate with the same vitriol and hysterics as it does Trump.

The legacy media views Trumpism as an existential threat to democracy. Consequently, the industry is willing to interfere in the process of democracy by willfully influencing the outcomes of presidential debates.

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