There's not much you can do in a "gotcha" situation like they were shooting for. His best hope would have been to immediately snap back pointing out that their clams are demonstrably false and questioning their integrity is journalists.

For example: That tripe about reaching out to the city manager in Ohio and him saying that no one filed a police complaint about their pets being killed should have been immediately smacked down with "I'm not interested in police blotter entries, I'm talking about the videos we've all seen on the internet from actual people with their real pets strong up like a butcher shop. Seeing as how you're a journalist, maybe you might want to ask some follow-up questions tomorrow with that city manager about how he explains those videos.".

It's also pretty telling when the live stream I was watching had posts less than 5 minutes later of police audio where people called in the exact complaints that ABC News said they were told hadn't been made. I get that he's not going to have that information available on the stage, but they took a break so I would hope an aide rushed up with the same information and then he could hammer them immediately upon taking the stage again.

People's opinion of the debate would certainly be colored by strong proof that the moderators were biased against one of the candidates being presented live while it's in progress.

There's not much you can do in a "gotcha" situation like they were shooting for. His best hope would have been to immediately snap back pointing out that their clams are demonstrably false and questioning their integrity is journalists.

For example: That tripe about reaching out to the city manager in Ohio and him saying that no one filed a police complaint about their pets being killed should have been immediately smacked down with "I'm not interested in police blotter entries, I'm talking about the videos we've all seen on the internet from actual people with their real pets strong up like a butcher shop. Seeing as how you're a journalist, maybe you might want to ask some follow-up questions tomorrow with that city manager about how he explains those videos.".

It's also pretty telling when the live stream I was watching had posts less than 5 minutes later of police audio where people called in the exact complaints that ABC News said they were told hadn't been made. I get that he's not going to have that information available on the stage, but they took a break so I would open aid rushed up with the same information and then he could Hammer them immediately upon taking the stage again.

People's opinion of the debate would certainly be colored by strong proof that the moderators were biased against one of the candidates being presented live while it's in progress.