Ebullient ABC Celebrates Working With Harris to Wage ‘Warfare’ on ‘Defensive’ Trump

Curtis Houck
September 11th, 2024 12:16 PM

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Following what can safely be placed at the top of the worst presidential debates ever given the election interference by ABC News’s questioning and open liberal partisanship by moderators Linsey David and David Muir, Wednesday’s Good Morning America was bursting at the seams over Vice President Harris “confron[ting] Donald Trump” (along with Muir and Davis) and putting him “on defense” throughout the “fierce and fiery face-off.”

In other words, we told you so about Muir and ABC.

“Breaking overnight, their first debate. Kamala Harris confronts Donald Trump. Breaking overnight, the vice president and former president meet for the first time at the ABC News presidential debate,” co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos announced in a tease.

After co-host Michael Strahan led off by touting Harris shaking Trump’s hand, Stephanopoulos gushed this was her “clearly signaling there that she wanted to take command, kicking off 90 minutes of confrontation” that had “Trump on defense for most of the night” and claimed polls overwhelmingly call Harris the winner.

Chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce was in rare form (and on the heels of doing it on both the pre- and post-debate shows), gushing about the “fierce and fiery face-off” with “Trump on defensive for much of the night” thanks to Harris “taking every chance...to get under his skin, goading Trump”.

She also made sure to herald Davis and Muir playing more than just the job of moderators:

Bruce also complained Trump was the one who “[got] personal” (although Harris, among other lines, brought up claims of sexual misconduct against Trump) and forced to discuss “statements questioning Harris’ racial identity”.

On the argument between Trump and Muir about 2020, Bruce waved the proverbial pom-poms to boast “Harris us[ed] the moment to call Trump unqualified.”

Virulently anti-Trump correspondent Rachel Scott celebrated what many saw as pitfalls in Trump’s performance, bragging that Harris “definitely did” “get under [his] skin” to the point that “[h]is volume only getting louder and louder as the debate progressed.”

Stephanopoulos returned to revel to longtime correspondent and three-time anti-Trump author Jonathan Karl that “Harris was engaged in a kind of psychological warfare.”

 

Karl obviously agreed that’s what happened and, like he did in the post-debate show, fawned over Harris’s handshake and excitedly opined on how poorly he thought Trump did:

Chief global affairs anchor Martha Raddatz had an eye-roll of a zinger on foreign policy, claiming there’s “absolutely no evidence” Trump could have prevented the war in Ukraine and ended the war in Gaza, so he shouldn’t have argued he would have handled those differently.

In the second half-hour, Stephanopoulos reiterated his admiration for Harris “tak[ing] command” and brought in Chris Christie and Donna Brazile to continue singing Harris’s praises and stacking the deck against Trump (to put this election to bed). Only near the end did Christie admit Harris wasn’t sterling and actually avoided scrutiny on policy (click “expand”):

CHRISTIE: [I]t was incredibly typical performance on his part when he’s unprepared. Now, you know, I ran debate prep in 2016 and 2020. And it was always a wrestling match, George, to try to get him to focus, to try to get him to stay disciplined. And it really was like a boxing match between us in prep. It’s clear he didn’t have anybody who would smack him around during prep this time ‘cause he went out there and just did whatever the heck he wanted, straight from his instinct and his gut, which is to be angry and a grievance candidate. And the amazing thing was — for me is that it’s clear Vice President Harris spent a lot of time preparing. And she very deftly put in bait. And, every time she threw the bait out, he chased every rabbit down every hole, whether it was about rallies, whether it was about people eating pets in neighborhoods, and all these different crazy stories. And I — look, people — her goal last night for the people that she was talking to was to look like she belongs there. You know, she is a lesser known candidate than Donald Trump. And, so, she did it. She accomplished what she needed to accomplish and he helped her.

(....)

BRAZILE: [T]here was one person who showed up as the next president. And that was Kamala Harris. She had a solid performance, George. We knew that she had to go in there and introduce herself to the American people. She also had to lay out some fundamental issues and vision that she has for the country. But she owned the moment from that handshake. She didn’t allow Donald Trump to get under her skin. Instead, he took the bait. She was solid and — and basically talking to the American people. She wasn’t side tracked by his taunts or his rantings. And so, I think this gave the Vice President an opportunity to once again go out there and continue to tell hardworking Americans how she’s going to lower cost, protect the country and also ensure that every — everybody in this count feels that we belong here, that she can unite us, and that she can keep America strong again.

(....)

CHRISTIE: I think the more important thing is she’s got to own some of the mistakes in         the Biden administration and say this is the way I’m going to move on for it. She didn’t answer about Afghanistan last night. She didn’t answer about the border. And she got away with it because he was so unhinged. Now, if she he comes back with a more disciplined approach, she’s going to have to answer that. And, by the way — and I said this in The New York Times yesterday, there’s nothing wrong with admitting when mistakes were made. The American people understand that and they’ll respect you for it. Everyone who watched the withdrawal from Afghanistan knew it was a mistake the way it was done. Everyone who watches what’s going on in the border and what’s changed since they got tougher knows that the earlier approach was a mistake. She wasn’t in charge. It was Joe Biden who was making those decision. So, she should just say it was a mistake, I own it and I know I can do better.

As for the Taylor Swift endorsement, it received a few giddy mentions (but not full segments like on CBS and NBC).

Roberts swooned in a tease with Look What You Made Me Do playing in the background: “And overnight, Taylor Swift makes her presidential endorsement following the debate, with over 280 million Instagram followers.”

Bruce tried to make it seem as though Swift decided based on ABC’s debate:

Now, one voter who was swayed by what they saw, Taylor Swift, posting to her 283 million Instagram followers that she has seen enough and done enough research to make up her mind, endorsing Kamala Harris.

And, during the Christie-Brazile segment, the latter closed by saying she’s “a Swiftie” and thus wanted to quote “one of Taylor Swift’s great songs”: “Donald Trump is going to have a hard time shaking off that debate performance. A hard time shaking it off.”

Strahan was enthused, chuckling that “we saw what Donna did”, adding “we got you, Donna!”

To see the relevant ABC transcript from September 11, click here.

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