Report: ABC’s David Muir Suffers Ratings Decline After ‘One-Sided’ Presidential Debate

Some viewers of ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir are apparently unhappy with how the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris played out on the network.

During the event on September 10, Muir and co-moderator Linsey Davis fact-checked Trump several times, but they failed to pounce on Harris with corrections, Fox News reported on Tuesday.

Numerous conservatives have suggested that the debate was not fair, which has reportedly cost the network. The outlet continued:

Muir’s “World News Tonight” averaged 6.7 million viewers on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the three episodes following the debate, after averaging 7.6 million in 2024 leading up to the debate.

The 12% drop in viewers for “World News Tonight” is more significant than slight declines “CBS Evening News” and “NBC Nightly News” saw when comparing the three episodes following ABC’s debate to the year-to-date totals, although Muir’s newscast remained the No. 1 broadcast evening newscast.

After the 90-minute debate, viewers slammed the moderators for their apparent bias in favor of Harris, claiming they used a double standard on follow-up questions, fact checks, and how questions were framed, according to Breitbart News.

On the other side of the aisle, Democrat allies in the establishment media shared rave reviews of Muir and Davis following the debate, Breitbart News reported on Wednesday.

The article noted, “At one point in the debate, Muir even fact-checked Trump’s claim that he was sarcastic when discussing the results of the 2020 election in a recent interview.”

The recent Fox report noted it was unclear if Trump’s supporters have quit watching ABC’s newscast following the event, but Trump told the outlet it was “one-sided.”

During an interview on Fox News Channel’s Fox and Friends, Trump called Muir and Davis a “rigged deal” and suggested they reflect the media in America, Breitbart News reported on Wednesday.

He also said, “[A] lot of people are very angry about it. And, you know, you have corrupt news organizations. You have a lot of bad people. It’s amazing.”