David Muir and Linsey Davis will moderate the 1st debate between Harris and Trump. Here's what to know about the ABC News journalists.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will meet for the first time Tuesday night in Philadelphia in a presidential debate hosted by ABC News.
The 90-minute primetime debate will be moderated by ABC World News Tonight anchor and managing editor David Muir and ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis.
It is currently the only scheduled debate between the 2024 Democratic and Republican presidential nominees. And just like the presidential debate between Trump and President Biden in June, there will be no live audience.
Here is some background on the moderators.
Who is David Muir?
Muir, 50, has been with ABC since 2003 and anchor of ABC World News Tonight since 2014.
He moderated presidential primary debates for the network in 2016 and 2020.
Muir has also done interviews with politicians from both sides of the political aisle, including a June interview with President Biden for the network’s D-Day coverage. Muir had the first joint interview with then-Vice President Biden and his running mate, then-Sen. Kamala Harris, weeks before the 2020 election.
He was also the first journalist to interview Trump as president in the White House in 2017.
Trump has since been sharply critical of ABC News — calling the network “nasty” — and of This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos, who he routinely disparages in posts on Truth Social. But Muir has, to this point, escaped Trump’s ire. (Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s longtime adviser, told the Daily Beast that Muir “seems like central casting” to Trump.)
Prior to joining ABC News, Muir was an anchor and reporter at WCVB-TV in Boston and WTVH-TV in Syracuse, N.Y., his hometown. He earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ithaca College.
Who is Linsey Davis?
Davis, 46, has been with ABC since 2007 and moderated Democratic presidential primary debates in 2019 and 2020.
But she is lesser known than Muir, hosting ABC News Live Prime, the network’s nightly streaming newscast, and ABC World News Tonight on Sundays.
Davis has interviewed dozens of politicians, including Harris and former Vice President Mike Pence, and numerous celebrities. According to her official bio on ABC’s website, Davis “got the only interview with comedian Bill Cosby in the wake of dozens of sexual assault allegations.”
Before joining ABC, Davis was an anchor at WTHR-TV in Indianapolis and a reporter at WJRT-TV in Flint, Mich. She earned her undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Virginia and a master’s in communications from New York University.
What to expect
While prepping for the debate in Philadelphia, ABC News political director Rick Klein told the New York Times that the job of moderators is to “facilitate a discussion,” adding: “The debate belongs to the candidates.”
At the last debate in June, CNN moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper were criticized for not fact-checking Trump or Biden in real time.
Asked whether there was a role for live fact-checking, Klein was noncommittal.
“We’re not making a commitment to fact-check everything, or fact-check nothing,” he said. “We’re there to keep a conversation going, and to facilitate a good solid debate, and that entails a lot of things in terms of asking questions, moving the conversation along, making sure that it’s civilized.”
