Back in May, President Joe Biden challenged former President Donald Trump to two debates. CNN would host the first on June 27, and the second by ABC News on Sept. 10. Although Trump had filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News and host George Stephanopoulos in March, he was delighted by the opportunity to face off against Biden in any setting and agreed to all of these terms, unfavorable as they were.
Clearly, Biden’s implosion at his first showdown with Trump marked the beginning of the end of his hopes for a second term. When Biden exited the race on July 21, Trump naturally assumed that ended his commitment to the September debate.
After Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee, Trump proposed they participate in a Fox News debate on Sept. 4. Harris refused, insisting that he honor the commitment he had made to Biden for the ABC debate.
Last week, Trump proposed a series of three debates. Despite the obvious conflict posed by his litigation against the network, he agreed to attend the ABC debate if Harris would commit to debates on Fox and NBC on Sept. 25.
Last Thursday, ABC News confirmed that both Harris and Trump have agreed to attend its debate. So far, Harris refuses to take part in the other two.
As we know, since replacing Biden at the top of the ticket, Harris has not held a single press conference. Nor has she sat for an interview. Her campaign events are highly scripted. She sticks to her teleprompter and studiously avoids situations where she is required to speak extemporaneously, because when she does, toads come out. She is notoriously inarticulate.
So why is Harris so willing to debate Trump on ABC — and only ABC?
Well, the New York Times has some ideas. It turns out that Harris’s “longtime friend,” Dana Walden, is a top-ranking executive at the Walt Disney Company, “whose portfolio includes ABC News.”
The Times makes it clear that Harris and Walden, whom they note “is both revered and feared in Hollywood,” are not mere acquaintances. Describing the bond between the two, the authors wrote: “But rare is the genuine, enduring friendship like that between Ms. Harris and Ms. Walden. Their closeness is no secret in Los Angeles and Washington circles, though it has become more notable in light of Ms. Harris’s ascension to the top of the ticket — and ABC’s confirmation on Thursday that the network would host a prime-time debate that could make or break the vice president’s political future.”
According to the Times, Harris and Walden have been friends since 1994, and “their husbands, Matt Walden and Doug Emhoff, have known each other since the 1980s.” Harris has referred to the Waldens as “extraordinary friends,” the report said.
The Times reported that the Waldens have donated to Harris’s political campaigns “since at least 2003” and even hosted fundraisers for her at their Brentwood, California, home.
At an April 2022 event, Harris joked, “In many ways, Dana and Matt are responsible for my marriage.” Harris told donors that she and her husband were set up on a blind date by a couple who had been set up by the Waldens.
Asked to comment on what sure looks like a conflict of interest, ABC issued a statement that read: “ABC News has built its longstanding reputation on journalistic integrity. All editorial decisions are in the hands of ABC News management and the seasoned journalists and producers of ABC, who hold themselves to the highest journalistic standards.”
Predictably, ABC denied that Walden’s friendship with Harris poses a conflict of interest. The statement emphasized the many layers of separation between Walden and ABC’s news division and noted that she holds no sway over editorial decisions.
After raising the issue of a conflict of interest in the first place, the Times then shifted into defensive mode and cited several other high-ranking media executives who have donated to political candidates in the past. For example, they reference CBS CEO and President George Cheeks, who donated $400 to the Biden campaign in 2020. That same year, chief executive of CBS News and Stations, Wendy McMahon, donated $3,550 to Biden.
From there, they go back to a $2,300 contribution to the McCain campaign in 2008 from Cesar Conde, who was Univision’s chief strategy officer at the time. (Conde is currently the chairman of NBCUniversal News Group.)
The Times’ only reference to the size of Walden’s political contributions is a $20,000 donation made in 2023 “to support President Biden and the Democratic Party.”
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However, none of that changes the facts as they lie: Harris has so far agreed to a single presidential debate to be hosted by ABC News, a network where her close friend of 30 years is a powerful executive. ABC is currently part of a massive propaganda campaign intended to catapult an unqualified, incompetent, far-left candidate over the finish line in November. And this is happening while her opponent is embroiled in a defamation lawsuit with the network.
So, does Harris’s friendship with Walden present a conflict of interest? Well, as they say, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”
Elizabeth Stauffer is a contributor to the Washington Examiner and the Western Journal. Follow her on X or LinkedIn.