ABC News’ broadcast of Tuesday’s first presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump reeled in nearly 58 million viewers, according to early ratings data from Nielsen.
The highly-anticipated faceoff, which saw 57.7 million viewers across ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox and CNN, surpassed the eyeballs drawn by President Biden’s debate against Trump in June, which garnered 51.3 million.
ABC News, which hosted Tuesday’s debate drew 18.3 million viewers, followed by Fox-owned channels Fox, Fox News and Fox Business, with a total of 13.7 million total viewers. NBC drew 9.7 million, while CBS reeled in 5.9 million. MSNBC and CNN attracted 6 million and 4.1 million, respectively.
Prospective voters were eager to see how Harris would stack up to Trump, following President Biden’s disastrous performance, which was the catalyst for the 46th President’s decision to not run for a second term and turn the reins over to his VP.
Despite the Harris-Trump debate’s strong viewership, it fell short of the 73.1 million that watched Biden and Trump’s first presidential debate, which was moderated by Fox News’ Chris Wallace, four years ago.
This time around, viewers tuned in to watch Trump, 78, face off against Harris, 59, who clinched the Democratic presidential nomination last month.
The 45th President appeared rattled at times as Harris claimed that military leaders had told her that Trump was a “disgrace,” that world leaders were “laughing” at him and even asserting that “people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom” after he was “fired by 81 million people” in 2020.
Over the course of the 90-minute debate, Trump traded barbs with Harris over abortion, foreign policy and crime, as ABC News’ moderators David Muir and Lindsey Davis jumped in periodically to fact-check him — to the dismay of Republicans, who griped that the Democratic candidate received a lighter touch over her own disputed statements.
When Trump argued that crime in the US is increasing because of migrants allowed into the country on Harris’ watch, “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir interjected: “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is actually coming down.”
The GOP candidate fired back with his own fact check that “they didn’t include the cities with the worst crime,” referencing the omission of data from Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago.
The 45th president also was also corrected when he said that President Biden “sent [Harris] in to negotiate with [Ukraine President Volodymyr] Zelensky and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, and she did, and the war started three days later, and that’s the kind of talent we have with her,” referring to the veep being deployed to Europe in February 2022 to try to prevent the Kremlin invasion toward Kyiv.
Muir asked Harris, “Vice President Harris, have you ever met Vladimir Putin?” — with Harris duly citing it as one of Trump’s “lies.”
Harris’ performance was far stronger than the dismal showing by Biden in June that stoked Democratic fears of a Trump landslide victory — with the former prosecutor sidestepping major gaffes and deflecting potentially damaging questions about her record and evolving stances on a range of major issues.
Ahead of Tuesday night’s debate, Trump allies and Republican commentators focused on Harris’ close friendship with Dana Walden, a senior Disney executive whose portfolio includes ABC News, and questioned the impartiality of the network.
Post-debate, they criticized the ABC News moderators, compiling a long list of missed opportunities for Muir and Davis to fact-check Harris, such as when she said that Trump had imperiled access to IVF treatment, and that the former President would implement the provisions of the right-wing Project 2025 governing blueprint, despite Trump denying it repeatedly.
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) tweeted, “ABC News has refused to ‘fact-check’ Kamala Harris on lying about Trump’s positions on: – Project 2025 – Charlottesville comments – ‘Bloodbath’ comments – IVF.”
Meanwhile, Democrats were left crowing over the moderator complaints, which they said proved it was a poor night for Trump.
“He wants to be president of the United States, I would hope that he can manage a few obvious questions,” one former Biden-Harris administration official told The Post, adding that the attacks were “just like the former president — always blaming someone else for your failures.”
