Senator demands debate communication between Harris, ABC
- Sen. Marshall claims moderators had a 'biased agenda'
- Trump and allies previously complained about the debate moderators
- The letter has no force of law requiring ABC to comply
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WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — Claiming ABC News was blatantly partisan in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris going into the presidential debate, a Republican senator is demanding the network turn over any communications it exchanged with Harris’ campaign before she took the stage with former President Donald Trump.
“On debate night, it became abundantly clear that ABC News and its respective moderators had a biased agenda,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, wrote in a letter to ABC News President Almin Karamehmedovic and Harris’ campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodriguez.
“Over 67 million Americans watched as a policy exchange between two presidential candidates quickly turned into a three-on-one debate against the Republican nominee,” Marshall added in the letter first reported by NewsNation.
Trump and allies have roundly complained that ABC News fact-checked the former president several times during the live broadcast while letting Harris go unchallenged. Some Trump supporters have gone further, alleging ABC News tipped Harris off to questions and treated her with kid gloves in the matchup.
ABC News did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. Marshall’s request for documents carries no force of law and so far does not have the support of fellow Republicans.
Marshall’s letter seeks the ABC News turn over and publicly release any texts and emails with the Harris team to clear up any concern about coordination.
“I’m just saying what the average Americans are saying that I represent the entire state of Kansas, and these are the questions that people are asking back home,” he told NewsNation.
“The American people deserve transparency and accountability from the mainstream media and a full accounting of whether ABC News coordinated with the Harris campaign to skew the debate’s questions and fact-checking in favor of the Vice President,” Marshall says in the letter.
In response to Wednesday’s letter, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, “You know that a game didn’t go well for a team, if two weeks later, they’re complaining about the calls the refs made.”
“No disrespect to Sen. Marshall, but this seems to me to be further proof that Vice President Harris had a domineering, had a dominant and successful champion performance at that debate, if he’s still questioning the refs,” Coons said.
