ABC debate moderators 'bent backwards' to help Kamala: Commission of Presidential Debates co-chair

Following the Tuesday night debate between Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, Commission on Presidential Debates Co-Founder and Co-Chair Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr criticized the ABC News moderators’ performances, saying they "bent backwards to help" Harris. 

"I thought one of the things that really shocked me last night was the way the moderators handled it," Fahrenkopf said on Newsmax’s The Record on Wednesday. "We always explain to our moderators, and we’ve done 33 of those, Greta, starting back in 1988, that their job is to be facilitators. They’re not to get involved themselves."

"It’s different than if you had someone on your show and you asked them a question and they answered it in a different way than they said a month before, you would correct them. But moderators are not supposed to do that," Fahrenkopf, who also served as Chairman of the Republican National Committee between 1983 and 1989, said. 

"A debate is between the candidates, not a debate between the candidate and the moderators. And these moderators, so far as I was concerned, it was the worst performance that I’ve seen. And I’ve — as I said, I’ve done 33 of these things over the years. I don’t know what their thoughts were, but they clearly were oversized, I think, on the way they treated the former President and the way they treated the present Vice President, I think they bent backwards to help her."

The Commission founder’s comments came ahead of Mark Penn, a former top adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, calling for an internal investigation into the ABC debate. 

Penn demanded to know if the network’s news department deliberately worked at "rigging the outcome of this debate." He said, "I actually think they should do a full internal investigation, hire an outside law firm. I don't know how much of this was planned in advance."

"I don't know what they told the Harris campaign. I think the day after, suspicion here is really quite high, and I think a review of all their internal texts and emails really should be done by an independent party to find out to what extent they were planning on, in effect, you know, fact-checking just one candidate and in effect, rigging the outcome of this debate. I think the situation demands nothing less than that," he added.