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Credit: ABCThe Walt Disney Company faced calls for a boycott this week due to its handling of Tuesday night’s presidential debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ABC hosted the first and only scheduled face-off between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump at 9:00 p.m. EST on September 10.
ABC hosts David Muir and Linsey Davis moderated the debate, which touched on immigration, taxes, foreign conflicts, and more. Though the Disney-owned channel hosted the live event and streamed it on Disney+, it was simultaneously broadcast to other channels, including NBC, CBS, PBS, and FOX. DirectTV couldn’t strike a deal with the Mouse and didn’t air the presidential debate.
Tuesday night’s broadcast was the first since the early presidential debate between President Trump and President Joe Biden in June. The consequential, controversial performance ultimately led President Biden to drop out of the race in July, leaving Vice President Harris to take over the Democratic ticket.
Ahead of Tuesday night’s ABC News presidential debate, conservative FOX News personality Sean Hannity had much to say about Disney hosting the debate between Harris and Trump. He insisted that the conversation wouldn’t be fair “barring some kind of political miracle.”
Hannity named moderator David Muir, George Stephanopoulos (who didn’t attend Tuesday night’s debate), and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel as evidence that “ABC-Disney is officially a woke, left-wing organization.”
On his show, the FOX News reporter claimed that “half the country” might stop visiting Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort if ABC mistreated President Trump.
“Maybe Bob Iger and his left-wing heir apparent, maybe they don’t want half the country to attend their theme parks,” Hannity said.
“Maybe they don’t care about their tanking stock price, which is their prerogative. They’re free to make that choice, but if they are biased against Donald Trump, as they have been leading into tomorrow night as their nightly newscast is, half the country is not going to like it one bit. They are not going to like ABC-Disney one bit either.”
Hannity spoke with Trump from the post-debate media spin room on Tuesday night. He touted his performance and claimed it was “three against one,” with the moderators showing preference for Harris. (In truth, they allowed Trump to interrupt and respond to Harris more frequently than she did.)
“I thought it was our best debate ever,” Trump said. “…We had three against one, like I anticipated.”
Hannity agreed.
“Three against one, and all of her radical positions, they leave on the table,” the host said.
No widespread Disney boycott appears to have taken effect yet.
Did you watch Tuesday night’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump? In the comments, share your thoughts on ABC’s handling of the event with Inside the Magic.