Ahead of Tuesday night’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, Trump is already boosting conspiracies that the event is being “rigged” in favor of Harris.
In recent days, Trump has promoted a number of baseless conspiracies claiming that ABC News, who will host the debate, is essentially colluding with the Harris campaign. But this is just one of numerous conspiracies the former president has been promoting in recent weeks, and his tirades to the press, online, and in fundraising emails hace included baseless allegations about immigrants flooding the country to vote, claims that the election will be fraudulent, and the idea that Harris became the Democratic nominee in a “coup.”
These conspiracies appear to be top of mind as Trump heads onto the debate stage at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia at 9 pm ET on Tuesday evening. And given his willingness to engage in pushing disinformation repeatedly during June’s debate with President Joe Biden, it is possible that Trump could continue pushing many of these false narratives.
“I'm going into very hostile territory with ABC, … [who] I think is the worst of everybody,” Trump told reporters on Saturday. “The reason I’m doing [the debate] is that's the only one that [Harris] would do it with, because her best friend is the head of ABC.”
Trump was referring to Dana Walden, a Disney executive whose portfolio includes ABC News. Walden and her husband have been friends with Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, for over 30 years, and the Waldens have donated significant amounts of money to Harris’ previous campaigns, as well as to a number of other Democratic candidates.
ABC News, however, is one of just 18 brands Walden oversees at Disney, and her involvement with ABC News does not extend to the editorial level, but is instead focused on corporate affairs such as budgets and staffing. “All editorial decisions are in the hands of ABC News management and the seasoned journalists and producers of ABC, who hold themselves to the highest journalistic standards,” the network said in a statement to The New York Times last month.
On Truth Social, Trump on Sunday shared a link to an article from the right-wing website called Just the News which highlights Harris and Walden’s relationship. Alongside the link Trump wrote: “Rigged?”
In a fundraising email, the Trump campaign pushed the idea that Harris would get the questions ahead of the debate: “Do you think ABC will give Kamala every question beforehand? We already know her liberal media cronies would do ANYTHING to keep her from getting embarrassed the same way Biden was!”
Trump has spent the past week posting about other conspiracies regarding the debate as well. On Saturday morning, he posted on Truth Social that Kamala Harris might use “boxes or artificial lifts” on the debate stage to make her appear taller.
“We had this out previously with former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg when he was in a debate, and he was not allowed a ‘lift,’” Trump wrote. “It would be a form of cheating, and the Democrats cheat enough.”
Over the weekend, Trump also boosted election fraud conspiracies. In a post on X that has been viewed more than 26 millions times, Trump threatened to jail opponents involved in what he described as “unscrupulous” behavior.
“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Trump wrote.
Trump has also continued to claim that a wave of immigrants will flood the country in the coming months to sway the election in Harris’ favor. Trump has been sharing AI-generated images on his Truth Social and X accounts that falsely portray mass numbers of migrants in the US.
Though he initially tried to call Harris “dumb as a rock,” “crazy,” or “lyin’ Kamala,” Trump in recent weeks appears to have settled on the nickname of “Comrade Kamala,” portraying the vice president as a marxist and communist. He has used the nickname on a daily basis in recent weeks on his social media feeds, posting AI-generated images portraying Harris as a communist leader. Elon Musk, X’s owner, has also shared these images.
Throughout the June debate with Biden, Trump repeated many familiar conspiracies he had promoted in the past, including debunked claims that police “ushered” rioters into the building during the January 6 attack on the Capitol and that Democrats wanted to allow abortion “even after birth.”
The debate is scheduled to be broadcast live on ABC at 9pm ET and last for 90 minutes. It will be moderated by ABC News anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis. The debate will be simulcast on multiple other networks, such as C-SPAN, PBS, MSNBC, and Fox News and will also be streamed live on ABC.com and ABC News’ YouTube channel. It will also be streamed on ABC News Live, Disney+, and Hulu.
