CNN Defends Decision to Not Fact-Check Debate Live: ‘It Is Up to the Candidates to Challenge One Another’ (2024)

CNN, facing an avalanche of criticism for letting false claims by Donald Trump go unchecked during Thursday night’s debate with President Biden, defended its decision to not intervene to correct misstatements live on-air.

In a statement to Variety, a CNN spokesperson said, “The role of the moderators is to present the candidates with questions that are important to American voters and to facilitate a debate, enabling candidates to make their case and challenge their opponent.It is up to the candidates to challenge one another in a debate.”

The CNN rep’s statement continued, “CNN offered robust fact-checking coverage in post-debate analysis on TV and across our digital platforms during and following the debate’s conclusion.”

According to CNN’s own analysis of the debate, Trump made more than 30 false claims during the debate, while Biden made at least nine false or misleading statements.

The laissez-faire format for the debate, in which CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash were to act as facilitators and not step in as fact-checkers, was agreed to by both Trump and Biden camps. But the litany of falsehoods, particularly from Trump, that were aired by CNN without any comment or follow-up questions, yielded a strong backlash from media critics and others.

“CNN’s moderating decisions damage the credibility of our profession,” Washington Postcolumnist Karen Attiahwrote on X. “CNN’s format of no fact checking, no pushback, no follow-ups was a mistake. The Biden campaign agreeing to this was a mistake. It demonstrates Trump’s strength and power. He can bend the media and Biden to play by his rules.”

Similarly, New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof commented, “I wish the CNN moderators did more fact-checking, letting the audience know when things are said that are flatly false. Not sure how it helps for a platform to transmit falsehoods disguised as facts.”

That said, the job performed by CNN’s Tapper and Bash did earn praise from some quarters — including Fox News host Sean Hannity and Elon Musk.

“In fairness to Fake News CNN, Fake Jake and Fake Dana, they put aside their prejudice and their hatred towards Donald Trump for the night and they actually asked questions and waited for answers, and I thought they managed the debate fairly well, something I didn’t expect,” Hannity said Thursday night on Fox News after the debate. Musk, the mega-billionaire who owns X and serves as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, also gave CNN a hat-tip for its hands-off approach, writing on the social platform, “No favoritism was shown to either candidate. This is what the public wants from the media.”

In a New York Times analysis titled “Dana Bash and Jake Tapper Let Candidates Be the ‘Stars of the Show,’” media correspondent Michael M. Grynbaum wrote, “The anchors mostly receded into the background on Thursday night. That was exactly what CNN leadership had in mind.”

RELATED: Biden-Trump Debate Watched by Nearly 48 Million Viewers, CNN Says Highest-Rated Program in Its History

Meanwhile, political consultant and pollster Frank Luntz wrote on X midway through the debate, “The CNN moderators are getting kudos from my focus group of undecided voters. They love the questions and the follow-ups, and there’s no accusations of bias. Good for @JakeTapper and @DanaBashCNN.”

Among Trump’s lies during the debate: that some states with Democratic governors allow babies to be killed after birth: “They will take the life of a child in the eighth month, ninth month, even after birth,” Trump said falsely on the CNN debate stage. The ex-president also said incorrectly that “every legal scholar” wanted to see Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, overturned. Biden made an effort to correct both of those Trump lies.

Trump also falsely claimed that Biden is planning to quadruple the amount of income tax paid by Americans and that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down Trump’s offer to send 10,000 National Guard troops to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In addition, his assertion that the U.S. under the Biden administration currently has its biggest budget deficit and its biggest trade deficit with China — when in fact, both of those records actually occurred during Trump’s presidency, as CNN pointed out in its post-debate fact-check.