CBS announces moderators will not fact-check during the VP debate

In the aftermath of the ABC News presidential debate where moderators “fact-checked” numerous alleged misstatements by Donald Trump but none from Kamala Harris, CBS News said its hosts will not correct vice presidential nominees JD Vance and Tim Walz when they face off next week.

CBS said Friday that Vance and Walz will be free to point out alleged misinformation, and that microphones will remain on for both candidates even when it is not their turn to speak, which could facilitate their ability to fact-check one another, according to the Associated Press.

CBS News did, however, say it reserves the right shut off a “hot mic” if it sees fit to do so, and it also said one of its units will provide real-time fact-checking during the debate on a live blog and on social media, and in its post-debate television analysis.

The 90-minute debate is scheduled for 9 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday in a Manhattan TV studio and will be moderated by the outgoing CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell and Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan.

By telling Brennan and O’Donnell to keep their opinions about which answers to their questions are misinformation and which ones are not, CBS News is presumably hoping to avoid the sort of accusations of bias that ABC News has been subject to since Trump and Harris squared off on September 10.

That night, moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis accused Trump of lying about Walz’s support of “abortion” after birth; his claim that some immigrants were eating pets in Ohio; and his assertion that there was cheating in the 2020 election.

Muir, citing FBI statistics, also “corrected” Trump’s claim that crime is higher under the current administration than it was under his. Just days later, the U.S. Department of Justice released new crime statistics showing that violent crimes against individuals over 12 years of age increased to 8.7 per 1,000 people in 2023 compared to 5.6 in 2020 when Trump was president.