That was in line with the mission Tapper laid out at the start of the debate. “Our job is to facilitate a debate between the two candidates tonight,” he said.
Throughout the broadcast, the network came under criticism on social media for not correcting false statements — particularly those made by Trump.
“The absence of real-time fact checking is the biggest failure of this debate,” wrote Anthony Coley, a contributor for NBC News and MSNBC, on X.
Chalian had left open the possibility of fact-checking “if there is some egregious mistruth put forward,” but the moderators chose not to.
Some on social media felt that Trump met that bar when he claimed that his opponents support abortion in the eight or ninth month of pregnancy — or “after birth.”
“How are none of the moderators fact checking this post birth abortion nonsense??” Kate Smith, senior director of news for Planned Parenthood, wrote on X. “That was a dumpster fire.”
Ameshia Cross, a Democratic strategist, called Trump “an assertive and authoritative liar” and said that “not having fact checking was a dumb decision.”
Biden also called out Trump, decrying “the idea that anything he says is true.”
Instead of fact-checking the candidates, Tapper and Bash focused mostly on keeping them within the time limits, stopping and starting and going back and forth between the candidates.
During a question about immigration, Trump said Biden “has killed so many people at our border by allowing all of these people to come in.” Instead of requesting the factual basis behind Trump’s assertion, Tapper responded, “Thank you, President Trump,” and passed the mic to Biden.
At another point, Biden ended his response midsentence — with the words “by the way” — when Bash said “thank you” and moved on to Trump.
Even when Trump seemed to ignore a question about the opioid crisis by instead criticizing Biden’s economic policies, the moderators said nothing and allowed Trump to keep talking.
Only when Trump wrapped up did Tapper nudge him: “The question was: What are you going to do to help Americans who are in the throes of addiction?” Tapper then gave Trump 67 seconds to answer the actual question.
The moderators also opted not to act immediately when Trump answered a question about whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election by continuing his criticisms of the Biden administration.
Eventually, Bash prodded him: “President Trump, the question was: Will you accept the results of the election, regardless of who wins? Yes or no, please.”
At one point, though, Bash stepped in to move the conversation along after Biden and Trump bickered about whose golf game was better.
In his pre-debate interview with The Post, Chalian said that the ideal time for fact-checking is after the debate, and promised that CNN’s journalists would be all over that task.
After the debate ended, anchor John King told viewers that “Donald Trump broke the fact-check machine more than I can count tonight.”
Still, despite the criticism, CNN hoped that Tapper and Bash would keep the attention on the candidates, not themselves. Without a doubt, they achieved that objective Thursday, even as they were accused by some of staying on the sidelines.
And Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, said that participants in his focus group viewed the moderators favorably. “They love the questions and the follow-ups, and there’s no accusations of bias,” he wrote on X. “Good for Tapper and Bash.”
