Mark Penn, a close friend of both Bill and Hillary Clinton, is asking ABC News to hire an outside law company to look into the show’s planning and staging of the conversation on Tuesday night to see if there was any attempt to “rigg the result of this conversation.”
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” I do n’t know what they told the Harris campaign. A review of all of their internal texts and emails, in my opinion, should be done by an independent party the day after, to find out how much they were planning on fact-checking just one candidate and thereby rigging the outcome of this debate. I believe there is nothing less that required by the circumstance,” he said.
Penn, chairman of the Harvard CAPS Harris Poll, called the mainstream media’s coverage of Harris “laughable”.
” It’s a 50-50, race. Trump has more obvious tools than she does, and part of the problem is that if the referees have their finger on the scale, it’s more difficult to, you know, break through and overcome. And certainly, general media coverage has been fairly laughable”, he said.
Meanwhile, ABC issued a statement saying that it never, ever, ever, never gave Harris the answers to any questions — scout’s honor.
” Absolutely not”, an ABC News spokesperson said in a statement. Harris was not asked any questions prior to the discussion.
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Just the News:
The Stagwell Group’s president and managing partner, Penn, suggested the Trump campaign distribute the ACLU questionnaire to all voters that Sen. Harris, D-Calif., filled out in support of gender balancing and defunding Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Other publications have revealed a dubious coziness between Harris and ABC News co-chairman Dana Walden. According to the New York Times, Harris described their relationship as “extraordinary friends,” and Walden and Harris are neighbors in Brentwood, a wealthy Los Angeles enclave where Ms. Harris and her husband also reside. The Waldens have also made a point about how Ms. Harris ‘ political campaigns have been funded by The Waldens since at least 2003, when she ran for district attorney in San Francisco.
I do n’t believe Mark Penn is particularly fond of Kamala Harris.
No fair game or debate can occur when the referees put their fingers on the scale, regardless of the score.
What ABC did by not fact checking one side while allowing the other side to repeat repeated falsehoods meant that one side had to defend itself.
It robs all sides…
— Mark Penn ( @Mark_Penn ) September 11, 2024
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One interview. One debate. Some rah rah stump speech that you repeatedly read. And voila you have a 50 per cent chance of being president.
If you can get it, it’s a good gig. No 3 debates. No 2 years of primaries, coalition building, no detailed policy development, and no daily press …
— Mark Penn ( @Mark_Penn ) September 4, 2024
No, it’s unlikely that ABC will launch an internal investigation into how the debate was planned and carried out, but rigging the debate would be a clear violation of the broadcast company’s rules. Perhaps the FCC should investigate. Or perhaps Congress ought to investigate it.
Or maybe it’s been hidden so that we wo n’t ever hear anything about it.
