MAGA influencers on social media have criticized the CBS News moderators for allegedly being unfair to Ohio Senator JD Vance during Tuesday’s vice presidential debate in New York.
Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene, a staunch Donald Trump ally, objected to moderators Margaret Brennan and Norah O’Donnell for muting his running mate’s microphone when the senator objected to a fact check.
“The CBS moderators just MUTED JD Vance’s mic as he called them out for their lies about Kamala Harris‘ open border policies,” Greene wrote on X. “DISGRACEFUL.”
In a separate post, Greene posted two pictures of Brennan smiling and wrote, “Find someone that looks at you the way CBS moderators look at Tim Walz,” indicating that the smile evidenced favoritism toward the Minnesota governor, Kamala Harris’ running mate.
On Tuesday, Senator Marco Rubio wrote on X, “once again another major media outlet embarrasses themselves on a debate stage. In just the first 30 minutes of the CBS debate the moderators have already offered two gratuitous editorial statements, (one of them misleading), taking a shot at JD Vance under the guise of ‘fact checking.'”
Prominent MAGA influencer @EndWokeness wrote on X that Vance was in the right when the moderators muted him, writing, “JD Vance demolishes the moderators for lying to the audience. CBS mutes him.”
The account also posted a video of the interaction, viewed 5.6 million times by Wednesday morning.
Another prominent MAGA influencer, @DC_Draino, called out the moderators, writing on X, “These nasty moderators tried to hide the truth about Kamala’s app for illegal aliens but JD Vance fact checked them on national TV. Beautiful.”
Newsweek reached out to CBS News and the Trump campaign for comment.
Norah O’Donnell (foreground) and Margaret Brennan moderating the CBS News vice presidential debate on October 1 MAGA members criticized the moderators for allegedly being unfair to JD Vance during the debate.
Matt Rourke/ASSOCIATED PRESS
At the moment in question, Vance said the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio, was there illegally. Brennan pushed back and noted that the migrants have legal status.
Vance interjected and said, “The rules were that you were not going to fact-check me.”
He then went on to describe how illegal migrants could apply to appeal their immigration status using a mobile phone application, which he claimed was an illegitimate policy of President Joe Biden‘s and Vice President Harris’ administration.
The Haitian migrants in Springfield, who in September Trump and Vance baselessly accused of eating their neighbors’ pets, have Temporary Protected Status (TPS) because they are fleeing conflict or an environmental disaster.
Haitian nationals have been eligible to apply for TPS in the United States since 2010. It has been extended several times since then, including several times during the Biden administration due to instability and violence in Haiti.
TPS has existed in the United States since President George H.W. Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990 into law.
