DAILY BEAST
ABC has denied Vice President Kamala Harris was given any questions ahead of Tuesday’s debate, shooting down one of the talking points that right-wingers—including former President Donald Trump—tried to use to explain the former president’s much-criticized debate performance.
“Absolutely not,” an ABC News spokesperson told The Daily Beast. “Harris was not given any questions before the debate.”
The network’s debate rules stated that “no topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.”
The spokesperson also said no aides were in contact with moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. Trump aides have attacked the moderators as “agents of the Harris campaign” following their efforts, which have been almost universally lauded.
The questions claim’s first dose of oxygen was on Wednesday, when Trump told Fox & Friends that he felt Harris was “awfully familiar” with the questions as he debated her.
It was further amplified on Thursday by Leading Report, a website that has repeatedly shared misinformation on everything from politicians to networks. It claimed on X that an ABC whistleblower would “allegedly” release an affidavit that said the Harris campaign was given sample questions in advance and that Harris was given “assurances” that only Trump would be fact-checked during Tuesday”s debate. (A source familiar with the matter dismissed the purported “assurances” claim as untrue.)
The website and its writers have recently claimed, either falsely or out of context, that Biden read the words “end of quote” on his teleprompter (he was reading a quote by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor); that CNN would add a 1-2 minute delay to its June 27 debate (it did not); and that World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab had been “allegedly” hospitalized in April (he was not).
The website masquerading as a news source seemed to derive the claim from an X account with the name “Black Insurrectionist.” The account tweeted on Thursday that they would release the said affidavit “before the weekend is out.” It offered no proof to back up the claim, and the account is not linked to any news source, conservative or otherwise.
Still, billionaire-turned-X-scribe Bill Ackman boosted the Leading Report post to his 1.4 million followers. “If this turns out to be true, this is a serious breach of journalistic ethics and a death blow to @ABCNetwork reputation,” he wrote.
Trump tried to lay the groundwork for potential debate shenanigans ahead of the debate that would excuse his performance, speculating on both Truth Social and to Sean Hannity that ABC panelist Donna Brazile—who famously tipped off Hillary Clinton about questions ahead of CNN events in 2016—would share questions with Harris. It came as Trump has repeatedly attacked the network—which he is currently suing—as biased.
“Will panelist Donna Brazil give the questions to the Marxist Candidate like she did for Crooked Hillary Clinton?” Trump wrote.
Trump has repeatedly labeled the debate as unfair and has claimed he was battling “THREE ON ONE” throughout the more than 90-minute telecast—all as he claimed he delivered his best debate performance yet. He wrote early Thursday the network should “fire everybody” and claimed later in the day he would not do another debate with Harris.
The Harris campaign’s responded by calling him a chicken.