They said it couldn’t be done. For years, we’ve heard all the reasons – excuses, really – that presidential debates cannot and should not be factchecked in real time.
Countering lies is not the job of the moderators, we were told; it is strictly the role of the candidates themselves. Factchecking would take up too much time and interrupt the flow of the debate, we were told. And what about impartiality? How could moderators be expected to decide whom to challenge with fact checks?
Factchecking, we were told, was impractical and inappropriate, and simply a very, very bad idea. Yes, even in the age of Donald Trump, who wakes up each day and immediately begins lying about his dreams.
But then came Tuesday night’s debate between Trump and Kamala Harris – and that memorable moment when the moderator Linsey Davis of ABC News piped up with just a few words after Trump went into one of his evidence-free rants about babies being executed.
“There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born,” Davis said in an even tone. It didn’t take a lot of time, it did correct an oft-repeated lie and it did establish something important: the most egregious falsehoods might well be challenged by these moderators. The candidates were put on notice.
Davis wasn’t alone in this. Her co-moderator, David Muir – in much the same neutral, polite tone and with much the same admirable brevity – did the same. After Trump made a wild claim about migrants in Ohio eating pets, Muir calmly stated that ABC had pre-checked this one and determined that it wasn’t true. And in another instance, Muir countered Trump’s charges of uncontrolled and rising crime, especially involving migrants, with this: “As you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country.”
It was noticed. And largely, though not universally, praised. The moderators also did a good job of returning to questions that had not been answered, and in some cases, pressing for a clear yes or no.
Trump’s allies were outraged, naturally, that he wasn’t allowed to fib at will. How terribly unfair, they charged. Why weren’t there equal numbers of fact checks and challenges for Harris, they demanded, never stopping to acknowledge that she had mostly stuck to that crazy little thing called the truth. (A lengthy New York Times listing of questionable statements by both candidates, published after the debate, identified a couple of times that Harris has strayed from reality or misled; but, as expected, there was really no comparison with Trump’s litany of lies.)
Trump later posted on social media calling the moderator “hacks”. The debate, he charged, was “THREE ON ONE!”
But, as CNN’s Abby Phillip drily observed: “When there is asymmetrical lying, there will be asymmetrical factchecking.”
The post-debate media coverage, in general, was up to its usual tricks of giving Trump the benefit of the doubt. Overall, it too often failed to convey with clarity what had happened in a debate dominated by the cool strength of Harris and the angry, incomprehensible ravings of Trump. Headlines tended to lapse into neutralizing, conventional language like this one in the Washington Post: “Harris crisply attacks Trump, prompting retorts with fiery language.”
NPR, to its credit, noted: “The spotlight should now be on Trump’s incoherence and general lack of any serious grasp on policy.”
And even over on Fox News, there were some abnormal glimmers of reality, as when Brit Hume allowed that Trump had “had a bad night”.
No doubt, the debate was a win for Harris.
And, with the help of ABC’s moderators, a better-than-usual night for the truth.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
