Viewers of the Tuesday, October 1 debate between Senator and 2024 Trump running mate JD Vance and Minnesota Governor and 2024 Kamala Harris running mate Tim Walz took to X (formerly Twitter) and the airwaves to sound off on how the CBS News co-moderators handled the debate, alleging that they were “obnoxious” and “biased” in how they treated Vance.
Particularly at issue online in the wake of the debate was a moment in which co-moderator Margaret Brennan, despite rules for the debate to the contrary, fact-checked JD Vance on air during the debate, then the network cut off Vance’s mic as he tried to respond to the comments pushed by Brennan and call her out on breaking the rules to which everyone agreed.
In that exchange, Brennan said, “Just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status, temporary protected status.” Vance fired back, “Margaret, the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check. And since you are fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.”
Amongst those who sounded off was former Fox News Channel and current podcast host Megyn Kelly, who tweeted, “F you CBS – how dare you.” She continued, “Tried to fact check. JD put you in your place. You won’t [let] him fight you and you wont let them debate.” Chiming in, a commenter on her post added, “JD Vance called out the moderators for lying to the audience, and CBS immediately muted him. Legacy media is clearly controlled by the Democrats.”
Also sounding off was current Fox News Channel personality Bret Baier, who said, in his post-debate reaction comments. “And there was some, you know, questions about fact-checking and whether it was fair and balanced across the way.” Fellow FNC personality Brit Hume added, “The moderators were obnoxious and made it feel like three-on-one on Vance, and Vance was just fine.”
Yet another who sounded off on the matter on FNC was Joe Concha, who said, ”This was journalist malfeasance because this network CBS promised us the moderators were not going to fact check and then they go ahead and do it anyway but to his credit JD Vance did push back and fact check the fact check until his mic was cut…a horrible look for the Tiffnay network.”
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