Donald Trump slams ABC News for violating debate agreement with fact-checking

Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, 78, has criticised ABC News, accusing the network of violating an agreement with his campaign by fact-checking him during a recent presidential debate.

Speaking at a campaign event in New York City on Thursday, Trump took aim at ABC's moderators, particularly David Muir, for correcting his claims about rising crime rates in the US, according to Fox News.

ABC News organised the first presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on September 10, and according to US media, Kamala Harris won the debate.

This is not the first time Donald Trump has participated in a debate during an election cycle. In the previous election, Donald Trump debated Joe Biden, where Biden was reported to have lost.

During the event, Trump expressed frustration with Muir's moderation, stating, "I had one against three, but I think we did great. But David Muir of ABC, fake news, when I said that crime is way up in our country, he corrected me... but he didn’t correct Kamala Harris one time," reported Fox News.

Trump referred to a specific moment in the debate when Muir allegedly challenged his statement on crime.

"He said, ‘No, no, crime has not gone up.' I said crime has gone up massively. He said, 'I’d like to state for the record that crime has not gone up,'" Trump recalled, adding that his statistics were accurate.

The former president also claimed that ABC News broke a "deal" made with his campaign before the debate, which stipulated that there would be no fact-checks during the event. "We had a deal with ABC that there will be no corrections of any kind, and they violated the deal. Why? Because they're bad people, and they're fake news," Trump said.

Trump further criticized co-moderator Linsey Davis, who provided the first fact-check of the debate. "I never heard of her. I never want to hear of her. She was terrible. I don’t know how she ever got her job in the first place," he said.

Conservative critics have also expressed frustration with ABC's debate moderation, accusing Muir and Davis of being overly harsh on Trump while being lenient with Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump was fact-checked five times during the debate, while Harris was not challenged on any of her statements.

In a previous appearance on "Gutfeld!," Trump admitted regret for not confronting the moderators during the debate. "I think my only regret is that I wanted to be elegant, and I didn’t want to go after the anchors. I wish I did, in a way," Trump said.

Trump has yet to confirm whether he will participate in another debate. He appeared to dismiss a proposed CNN debate set for October 23, saying it was "too late" since early voting had already begun. However, he left the possibility open, telling Fox News, "Maybe if I got in the right mood."

Despite Harris' eagerness for a rematch, Trump highlighted that she previously declined debate offers from Fox News and NBC News, which he had accepted prior to the ABC debate. ABC News has not responded to requests for comment.