By David Bauder, Media Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --An estimated 67.1 million people watched the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, a sharp increase from the June debate that eventually led to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race.
The debate was run by ABC News but shown on 17 different networks, the Nielsen company said. The Trump-Biden debate in June was seen by 51.3 million people.
Tuesday’s count was short of the record viewership for a presidential debate, when 84 million people saw Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s first faceoff in 2016. The first debate between Biden and Trump in 2020 reached 73.1 million people.
With Harris widely perceived to have outperformed Trump on Tuesday night, the former president and his supporters are sharply criticizing ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. The journalists waded into on-the-fly fact checks during the debate, correcting four statements by Trump.
No other debates are currently scheduled between the two presidential candidates, although there’s been some talk about it and Fox News Channel has publicly offered alternatives. CBS will host a vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance.
Tuesday’s debate stakes were high to begin with, not only because of the impending election itself but because the last presidential debate uncorked a series of events that ended several weeks later with Biden’s withdrawal from the race after his performance was widely panned.
Opinions on how ABC handled the latest debate Tuesday were, in a large sense, a Rorschach test on how supporters of both sides felt about how it went. MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes sent a message on X that the ABC moderators were doing an “excellent” job — only to be answered by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who said, “this is how you know they’re complete s—-.”
While CNN chose not to correct any misstatements by the candidates during Trump’s debate with Biden in June, ABC instead challenged statements that Trump made about abortion, immigration, the 2020 election and violent crime.
6 people accuse Diddy of sexual assault in new lawsuits, including man who was 16 at the time
Sean "Diddy" Combs was hit Monday with a new wave of lawsuits accusing him of raping women, sexually assaulting men and molesting a 16-year-old boy — the first time he's been sued by a person alleging they were abused as a minor.
At least six lawsuits were filed against Combs in federal court in Manhattan, adding to a growing list of legal claims against the indicted hip-hop mogul, all of which he has denied. The lawsuits were filed anonymously to protect the identities of the accusers, two by women identified as Jane Does and four by men identified as John Does.
Some of the Does, echoing others who've accused Combs in recent months, allege that he used his fame and the promise of potential stardom to entice victims to lavish parties or drug-fueled hangouts where he then assaulted them. Some allege that he beat or drugged them. Others say he threatened to kill them if they didn't do as he pleased or if they spoke out against him.
The lawsuits describe alleged assaults dating to the mid-1990s, including at Combs' celebrity-studded white parties in Long Island's Hamptons, at a party in Brooklyn celebrating Combs' then-collaborator Biggie Smalls, and even in the storeroom at Macy's flagship department store in midtown Manhattan.
The plaintiffs in Monday's lawsuits are part of what their lawyers say is a group of more than 100 alleged victims who are in the process of taking legal action following Combs' Sept. 16 arrest on federal racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges. The lawsuits are among more than a dozen in the last year that accuse Combs of sexual assault.
Messages seeking comment were left for Combs' lawyers and other representatives. When the planned lawsuits were announced Oct. 1, a lawyer for Combs said the... Read More