Former President Donald Trump again attacked ABC News and its veteran anchors before Tuesday’s presidential debate, calling the network the “worst” and “most dishonest” on television.
“ABC is the worst network in terms of fairness,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity during a “town hall” event on Wednesday.
“They are the most dishonest network, the meanest, the nastiest, but that is what I was presented with. I was presented with ABC, George Slopadopoulos. He’s a nasty guy.”
Trump has repeatedly criticised ABC, which is hosting the presidential debate, since Vice President Kamala Harris secured the Democratic nomination. He has complained that he will not face off against President Joe Biden, who ended his reelection campaign after their June 27 debate. He has suggested multiple times that he may drop out of Tuesday’s debate in Philadelphia, calling ABC “fake news” and saying it employed a “panel of Trump-haters.”
Harris and Trump had jostled over the rules of the debate, with the vice president’s team pushing for microphones to be live at all times. But her campaign ultimately agreed to a set of rules on Wednesday similar to Trump’s debate against Biden, including muted microphones when an opposing candidate is speaking and no live audience.
Trump has quickly moved to sow doubt about the fairness of the event and suggested, without evidence, that Harris would have an advantage against him.
“They’re very nasty. I think a lot of people are going to be watching to see how nasty they are,” the former president said of ABC.
He went on to claim that the vice president would be given questions in advance. ABC has denied that would happen, saying the agreed-upon rules mean no topics or questions will be provided to either candidate beforehand.
“You might give her the questions and give her the answers with the questions. I’m not sure it’s going to help her,” he added.
ABC moved to cast the debate as a fair showing to both parties, noting both the Trump and Harris campaigns had agreed to the rules.
“Beyond the debate rules published today, which were mutually agreed upon by two campaigns on May 15th, we have made no other agreements,” a spokesperson for ABC told media outlets this week. “We look forward to moderating the presidential debate next Tuesday.”
The debate moderators will be “World News Tonight” anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis.