Grading Performance of David Muir and Linsey Davis During ABC News Presidential Debate

With great responsibility comes great expectations. And, surprisingly, after the CNN Presidential Debate in June, expectations for ABC News anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis were high coming into Tuesday’s debate.

Pretending as if moderating a debate featuring Donald Trump is “easy,” isn’t a fair litmus test for any debate moderator. The Republican nominee almost always answers the question — eventually — no matter how many detours he might make along the way. Now in his third time in the race, there is plenty of tape on Trump for moderators to prepare for.

But Vice President Kamala Harris is different. There isn’t as much material to work with, and was, when it all boils down, the wild card in the debate. David Muir and Linsey Davis couldn’t prepare as easily for her as they could for Trump.

And it showed.

The best debate moderators are like NFL referees: you only know their names when things have gone poorly. Unfortunately, I think many will know the names of David Muir and Linsey Davis.

The debate did not get off to a smashing start, with Muir saying that Vice President Harris was elected alongside President Trump four years ago. Slip of the tongue, yes, but to begin a television special with millions watching was an unfortunate slip of the tongue.

But early on in the debate, Muir — and Muir alone — set the precedent that multiple rebuttals would not only be allowable but encouraged. On the debate’s first question, he offered three chances for each candidate to respond to what the previous had just said. Rather than advance the conversation and control the debate, he allowed predictable mudslinging to take place right from the get-go, which continued throughout the event.

Muir controlled the first 15 minutes of the debate by himself before Davis asked a question. To be frank, I don’t know who to assign blame there. Was that a conscious effort by ABC News to showcase it’s star anchorman in the first portion of the debate? If so, it seems like a curious choice given that ABC World News Tonight has an already commanding lead in the ratings war with its network news counterparts. But, it did feel as if it took too long for Davis to be showcased.

In her first appearance, Davis asked an incredibly wordy and lengthy question.

“I want to turn to the issue of abortion. President Trump, you’ve often touted that you were able to kill Roe V. Wade. Last year, you said that you were proud to be the most pro-life president in American history. Then last month you said that your administration would be great for women and their reproductive rights. In your home state of Florida, you surprised many with regard to your six-week abortion ban because you initially had said that it was too short and you said, ‘I’m going to be voting that we need more than six weeks.’ But then the very next day, you reversed course and said you would vote to support the six-week ban. Vice President Harris says that women shouldn’t trust you on the issue of abortion because you’ve changed your position so many times. Therefore, why should they trust you?”

That was the first question asked by Davis, according to the ABC News transcript. It is entirely too long of a leadup into a simple question: “Why should American women trust you on the issue of abortion when your stance has been so unclear?” It’s that easy.

There was a redeeming quality from Davis in the response to President Trump’s answer, and this is where I will differ from many — especially in conservative media — watching the event. The former President ended his answer with a demonstrably false talking point that there are states that allow post-birth abortions. That is unequivocally not true. And at the time he said it, I thought “You have to immediately push back on that as a moderator.” And I was wrong. You don’t have to push back on it immediately. You have to push back on it eventually. And Davis did a good job handling that in the moment.

But that is where many believe the ABC News event turned into a three versus one debate with Muir, Davis, and Harris taking on Trump. I disagree. Because the two or three times Trump was fact-checked, he deserved to be real-time fact-checked. If you’re going to say that Haitian immigrants are “eating the pets of people” that live in Springfield, Ohio — when there is no evidence that it has happened — a debate moderator wouldn’t be doing their job by failing to call out the false statement.

Reactions to the real-time fact-checks were swift. Conservatives were not shy about their beliefs that it showed an inherent bias by the moderators. Mostly because those same fact-checks weren’t extended to Kamala Harris. Call me a hippie, commie, liberal, or whatever name you’d like to levy, but from my standpoint, Harris didn’t share an opinion as blatantly false as “They’re eating cats and dogs” or “In some states, you can kill the baby after it’s born.” Those statements are so demonstrably lacking in any semblance of reality that they need to be called out. It was the political equivalent of “Call it both ways, ref!” cries from the stands, but when only one team was committing technical and flagrant fouls while the other was guilty of administrative fouls.

What also needed to be called out was the extreme lack of actually answering the question by Harris. While I don’t think she shared as blatant disregard for the truth as the Republican nominee, she continually failed to actually answer the questions asked of her. In my opinion, David Muir and Linsey Davis should have pressed her for more concrete answers on a bevy of topics throughout the night. For instance, Muir point blank asked the Vice President if she had ever met Russian President Vladimir Putin. She never even approached the simple yes or no nature of the question, and Muir let it slide.

At one point, there was a question about Trump’s reversal on the outcome of the 2020 election. I thought it was a fair question and one that should have been asked. When Harris was asked a follow-up question about whether or not she viewed that response from the former President as voter suppression, she just flatly did not answer the question that was asked of her, instead using the opportunity to claim that military leaders have called Trump a disgrace. And instead of pressing her for an answer, Muir allowed a one-minute response to Trump about an answer that had nothing to do with the question being asked.

That might be where my biggest point of contention with the debate moderators lies. Linsey Davis refused to put her foot down and say “We’re moving on.” In the first hour of the debate, Muir had to step in as the quasi “muscle” to stop Trump from responding out of order. It almost appeared as if Davis was too afraid to take control of the event. But that’s your job as a moderator. Instead of continually saying “We have a lot of issues to get to,” sometimes you just have to grab the bull by the horns and say “Mr. President/Madam Vice President, we’re moving on.”

And that continually did not happen Tuesday. Several times, the candidate took control of the opportunity to return serve at their opponent, oftentimes with the beginning of their remarks failing to be heard because of the muted microphones. The moderators had the chance to move the debate forward. Instead, the wheels continued to spin in the mud that was being slung from one side to the other.

Ultimately, not as much ground was covered as I would have hoped. Were there good questions overall? Yes, absolutely. Was more than 6 minutes of a 90-minute debate wasted on a January 6th question in which each side gave an answer you could have seen on virtually any other televised conversation over the past three-and-a-half years? One-hundred percent.

But from a broadcasting perspective, I don’t believe it was the best performance by either David Muir or Linsey Davis.

For Muir, I’m giving him a C-. I believe he allowed too many responses from each side after neither had adequately answered the question in the first place. His failure to press Harris for answers was glaring.

For Linsey Davis, I’m giving her a D-. Her reluctance to take control of the event, coupled with an even bigger reluctance to press Kamala Harris for more concrete answers earns her a D-. I fully understand that a presidential debate during a hotly contested race with millions of viewers is a hell of a spot to be thrust into, but I just don’t believe Davis met the challenge. Muir, who is more experienced in the role, didn’t fare much better.

Unfortunately for the pair, I believe they might be the biggest story coming out of the event. Which is never what any debate moderator wants to hear the morning after one of their biggest assignments.

Garrett Searight

Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.