Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) vowed Friday to investigate claims that the ABC News debate moderators were “biased” against former President Donald Trump and coordinated with Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of their Sept. 10 presidential debate.
Since the debate that the majority of voters polled said Harris won, Republicans have lobbed unproven allegations that Harris was provided with debate questions prior to the event. ABC News has rejected the allegations.
Despite the network’s denial, Marshall pledged that he would send a letter to ABC and the Harris campaign “demanding all correspondence, records, and potential coordination between the two parties ahead of Tuesday’s presidential debate.”
The network did not respond to a request from the Washington Examiner for comment. The Harris campaign declined to comment.
Republicans and Trump after the debate were quick to cry foul of “biased” moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis for live fact-checking during the televised debate, as Democrats said the claims were a clear acknowledgment of Harris’s stronger performance.
“People were concerned that statements were allowed to just hang and not [be] disputed by the candidate Biden, at the time, or the moderators,” Davis told the Los Angeles Times of the prior debate between Trump and President Joe Biden hosted by CNN.
There is built-in suspicion among Republicans of collusion between major networks that host debates and Democratic presidential candidates. Former Democratic National Committee interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile leaked potential topics to the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 ahead of a CNN town hall, a network to which Brazile was a contributor at the time.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump assailed the debate as a “rigged show with somebody that maybe even had the answers.”
“I watched her talk, and I said, ‘You know, she seems awfully familiar with the questions,’” Trump said.
Despite previously calling for multiple debates against Harris, Trump says he will not be participating in a second one with her.
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The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper offered a more humorous take on the matter, boiling down Trump’s claims into a punchline.
“It’s a presidential debate, they always ask the same questions. It’s like being suspicious that someone knows all the words to ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game,’” Klepper said. “How will you fix the economy? What’s your stance on abortion? Do you promise not to overthrow the government? Standard, boilerplate debate questions.”