This claim and many others were quickly fact-checked and debunked by ABC News hosts and debate moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, a fact that clearly further incensed Trump.
Almost immediately after the debate finished, Trump reiterated the conspiracy about a “rigged” debate from ABC News that he has been promoting for the last week.
“I thought that was my best Debate, EVER, especially since it was THREE ON ONE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, where he tried to defend his claim about migrants eating pets by sharing links to unsubstantiated rumors.
This line of attack was echoed by Trump’s biggest supporters. “Weird how the hack moderators at [ABC News] are only ‘Fact checking’ Trump and allowing Kamala to lie nonstop,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote on X. “The Fake News is the enemy of the people!”
“The moderators might as well be on the DNC payroll,” Mike Lee, a Republican senator from Utah wrote on X. “This is ridiculous. This is the worst moderated debate in history.”
“Somebody abort the moderation of this debate and then send the journos to Gitmo,” wrote Sean Davis, CEO of the Federalist, on X.
Charlie Kirk, co-founder of Turning Point USA, called the debate “a show trial where the judge, jury, and executioner is ABC News,” while Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia, called it “an absolute attack on Trump.”
Despite his bravado online, Trump appeared to be concerned about the reception of the debate performance, as he went into the post-debate spin room himself. In between randomly shouting out polling numbers—”90%, 60%, 72%, 71% and 89%”—Trump once again claimed it was “my best debate ever.”
It is an unsurprising response from a man who seems to be insulated from reality by a cadre of sycophants within the Republican Party and his campaign team, and an army of kowtowing supporters on social media platforms.
On these platforms on Tuesday night, his supporters echoed Trump’s complaints about ABC News’ decision to fact-check him in real time and continued to attack and spread conspiracies about Harris based on her gender.
Many of the comments used deeply misogynistic and racist language to refer to Harris, calling into question her ethnicity and boosting the conspiracy that her success was predicated on sleeping with powerful men.
“I hope he calls her a stupid bitch to her face,” a member of a fringe pro-Trump message board wrote, while another added: “I bet she had a lot of abortions.”
On Telegram, one member of a Proud Boys channel responded to Harris calling the group a “militia” during the debate by writing: “We are living rent free in this whores head.”