ABC News Knocks Down Debate Conspiracy Theories Being Pushed By Prominent Trump Boosters

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

ABC News knocked down several conspiracy theories from prominent supporters of Donald Trump that last week’s debate was rigged in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris, after a dubious “affidavit” filled with outlandish allegations about the news network rocketed around social media.

Over the weekend, a document — which was filled with wild claims, contradictions and typos — went viral on Twitter/X. It claimed that an unnamed whistleblower who worked at ABC News was to reveal an agreement that Harris was not only given debate questions ahead of time, but that only Trump would be fact-checked by moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, among other claims. Despite how dubious the document appeared, and the fact that it came out of nowhere and had no name attached to it, several prominent figures on the right promoted the story on social media, including billionaire Bill Ackman, Twitter/X owner Elon Musk, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and Benny Johnson (who was revealed to be involved with Russian state media’s propaganda scheme). A couple of them demanded that ABC be subject to consequences and answer for these baseless accusations.

ABC News issued a complete denial that there were any shenanigans ahead of the debate in a concise statement provided to Mediaite on Tuesday:

ABC News followed the debate rules that both campaigns agreed on and which clearly state: No topics or questions will be shared in advance with campaigns or candidates.

After Trump’s poor performance at the debate, a number of conservative commentators argued the ex-president lost the debate. But some of his most prominent boosters refused to admit Trump floundered and blamed the moderators and ABC News for Harris having a more successful night.