Donald Trump called for ABC News to be shut down during a rant about the way he was treated by the network during his presidential debate against Kamala Harris.
The former president called into Fox & Friends on Wednesday morning to complain that he’d faced a “rigged deal” with the debate, with moderators “correcting everything” he said while “not correcting with her.” Asked why he felt moderators hadn’t corrected Harris in the same way, Trump answered: “Because they’re dishonest.”
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“I think ABC took a big hit last night,” he continued. “To be honest, they’re a news organization—they have to be licensed to do it. They ought to take away their license for the way they did that.”
Trump used the interview to repeatedly complain that the debate was “three-to-one,” meaning he felt that moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis were on Harris’ side against him.
“The press is so dishonest in this country, it’s amazing,” Trump said. “Now, I didn’t mind because frankly I was pretty sure that’s what they would do. CNN was much more honorable—the debate we had with Biden was a much more honorably run debate.”
The CNN moderators in June notably did not fact-check or question statements made by Trump or Biden during that event, as per agreed rules.
Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt cited a report from Media Research Center—a conservative group which describes itself as dedicated to combating “falsehoods and censorship” in the news media in order to “preserve America’s founding principles and Judeo-Christian values.” The report, which was covered by right-wing outlets including Breitbart and the Daily Wire, claimed Muir’s show, World News Tonight, was unfairly biased against Trump and in favor of Harris.
The show then aired a compilation of what Earhardt described as the “lies” Harris told about Trump during the debate, including her statements that Trump “plans on implementing” Project 2025 and “will sign a national abortion ban” if he returns to the White House.
The montage also included Harris paraphrasing Trump’s comment about there being “very fine people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—Trump later said at the same 2017 press conference that neo-Nazis and white nationalists should be “condemned totally.”
It further showed Harris saying during the debate that Trump has said “there will be a bloodbath” if “the outcome of this election is not to his liking.”
“‘Bloodbath’ was referring to the economy,” Trump said after the compilation ended. “Everybody loved the term, because as soon as they heard the word—it’s sort of a vicious word.”
He also said that the full context of his quotes on Charlottesville make it clear that what he’d said was “absolutely perfect.”
“ABC News knew that, everybody knew that, frankly,” Trump said. “I think they lost a lot of credibility.”
Nevertheless, Trump claimed the evening had gone well for him. “I’ve been told I’m a good debater,” he said. “I think it was one of my better debates. Maybe my best debate.”
The Daily Beast has contacted ABC News for comment.
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