Body language experts told Dr. Phil that the ABC News moderators appeared biased against former President Donald Trump during the recent presidential debate. The discussion took place in a special post-debate town hall broadcast featuring Dr. Phil and experts Scott Rouse and Greg Hartley.
Scott Rouse, who holds multiple certifications in advanced interrogation training and has trained with agencies like the FBI, Secret Service, U.S. Military Intelligence, and the Department of Defense, and Greg Hartley, a former Army interrogator with expertise in intelligence, business, body language, and behavior, were asked if they noticed any bias from moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis.
“Let’s just look at body language, look at the facial expressions of people when they’re looking at Trump. There was clearly a bias against Trump in their faces,” Hartley said.
The experts questioned the fairness of ABC News in hosting the debate. Hartley pointed out what he considered biased treatment toward Vice President Kamala Harris. “There’s a little bit of a thumb on the scale when you ask one person two questions in a row as the primary question, and it’s a softball question that feels like bias to me. I would challenge them to tell me why that’s not biased if I were in his situation,” he remarked.
Rouse argued that the moderators frequently interrupted Trump, adding, “At the same time, we’re seeing the commentators, they would be speaking at the same time President Trump was. So as he’s trying to finish his answer, they would keep- they would not only answer, they would keep talking as well.”
Rouse, also a Grammy-nominated music producer, suggested there was a difference in how the network handled the audio levels for Trump versus Harris. “And you can tell, I believe, if I’m correct here, the volume of [Trump’s] microphone might have been a little bit ‘hotter’ than everybody else’s,” Rouse noted. “That’s why he sounded so loud. He was speaking loudly, but I think you’ll hear this when you listen back- this is my opinion.”
During the discussion, Dr. Phil reviewed the questions asked to both candidates and observed that Trump faced more fact-check and follow-up questions compared to Harris. “In each of these questions to Trump, there were fact-check, follow-up questions. And I didn’t hear that to Harris,” he stated.
Hartley agreed, adding, “Nor did I. And there’s a way you ask a question. I interrogated people for a long time. And when you’re doing that, you want to look at ‘how do I ask the question’? Why didn’t you say, ‘Why have you not done anything about the border as opposed to Trump?'”
He continued, “There’s a more negative tone often towards Trump. Look, at the end of the day, this is about finding out what they think and giving everybody a chance to understand it. And I thought it was a little heavy-handed at times, just my opinion.”
