Donald Trump won the debate. Just ask him, he’ll tell you! Or don’t ask him, he’ll tell you anyway.
Here on Planet Earth … not so much. Trump may yet win the election, but it probably won’t be because 67 million people watched him get baited into shouting racist lies about immigrants eating cats after Vice President Harris needled him about crowd size. And according to Republican pollster Frank Luntz, he probably lost the election by ranting like a meme-addled lunatic.
Calculate Your Firm’s Time-Saving Potential
Want more time for what matters most? MyCase streamlines your firm so you can focus on winning cases. See how much time you could save with our Law Firm Time Savings Calculator—try it now!
“I’m trying to decide if I want to go on record, and the answer is yes,” Luntz admitted dejectedly to Piers Morgan. “I think that he loses because of this debate performance.”
The once and Godforbid future two-bit fascist responded in his typical fashion: He made threats.
“ABC took a big hit last night. I mean, to be honest, they’re a news organization,” he babbled to his emotional support team at Fox and Friends. “They have to be licensed to do it. They ought to take away their license for the way they did that.”
And right on cue, his pals at The Federalist swoop in to smear lipstick on the authoritarian pig.
Gen AI: Your Legal Research Assistant, Not Your Replacement
Here's how you can spend more time practicing law, and less time sorting, sifting, and summarizing.
Revoke ABC’s broadcast license and charge the debate-rigging “moderators” with criminal election fraud and interference.
And if you’re a stupid crybaby commie and this suggestion gives you the sads, just remember this is the world you asked for when you got a corrupt New York…
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 11, 2024
The linked article is by the outlet’s election correspondent Beth Brelje. Brelje is not a lawyer, but she did spend three years at the Epoch Times, so she knows a thing or two about pay-for-play media.
In Brelje’s math, if you value each 30-second segment of the debate as an ad worth $225,000, then the 90-minute debate was worth $40.5 million to the Harris campaign.
“The Federal Election Commission (FEC) might consider it an ‘in-kind contribution,’ which is a non-monetary contribution to a campaign,” the opinion journalist speculates, without any apparent irony.
“The FEC could consider the debate a ‘coordinated communication,’ which can be a type of in-kind donation that is made in consultation with the candidate,” she natters on conspiratorially. “We know both campaigns spoke with ABC to arrange the debate, so the communication lines were open for such an arrangement.”
“Either way, $40.5 million far exceeds contribution limits. Plus, corporations are barred from making such contributions,” she asserts confidently, unburdened by what has been, or input from an actual election lawyer who might contradict her crackerjack Google skills.
She also taps out some nonsense about the FCC, mischaracterizing a regulation governing ad sales and local media providing free airtime to one candidate, so that she can pretend ABC is in violation of the law. Because a debate where one candidate speaks for 43 minutes, and the other speaks for 37 is somehow unfair to the guy who talked more.
“There are some exceptions for certain types of news programming, including debates,” she concedes, in a token nod to reality, before reverting to her preferred fantasy narrative. “But this was a DINO — a debate in name only.”
Because it’s fun to say stupid things on the internet.
As of today, the FEC and FCC are not engaged in political persecutions because journalists factcheck a political candidate who lies about Democrats murdering newborns and immigrants eating pets. But Trump has promised to do exactly that if he gets back into power, so… perhaps Ms. Brelje will one day get her wish.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.