President Trump and his acolytes are now saying ABC News should lose its broadcasting license after the network’s debate moderators fact-checked him, but not his opponent, at Tuesday’s debate. The former president, despite flash polls taken after the event, insists that he had a good night despite the opposition. 

Shortly before traveling to Ground Zero to memorialize the victims of the September 11 attacks alongside President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Senator Vance, Trump called into Fox News to claim that the debate was three versus one, with Ms. Harris being aided by moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis. 

“They’re dishonest … I think ABC took a big hit last night. I mean, to be honest, they’re a news organization. They have to be licensed to do it. They ought to take away their license for the way they did that,” Trump told “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday morning. 

Trump was called out by moderators for claiming that Ms. Harris supported the murder of newborns and for saying that Haitian migrants in Ohio were stealing and eating residents’ pets. At no point during the debate was Ms. Harris fact-checked, including when she claimed — incorrectly — that Trump promised a “bloodbath” would ensue should he lose the 2024 election. 

Trump said in March that there would be a “bloodbath” for the American auto industry if he did not return to the White House. “‘Bloodbath’ was referring to the economy,” Trump said during his Tuesday appearance on Fox News. “They have created an economy — ‘bloodbath’ was the word that I used — and it was fine in that context. They were trying to make it sound like it was to riot or something.”

Trump also mentioned that Ms. Harris was never fact-checked for claiming that the former president supported a national abortion ban, which he says he does not, and that he supports a ban on in vitro fertilization, which, again, he says he does not. He has said he wants private health insurance companies or even the government itself to cover the costs of IVF for couples, though Republicans in Congress have been reluctant to endorse such legislation. 

Threatening ABC News’s license isn’t new for the 45th president. During his time in the White House, he explicitly called for NBC News’s broadcast license to be rescinded, and said that it may be “appropriate to challenge” the licenses of “the networks.”

Some pro-Trump figures went even further than the former president. The chief executive of a conservative digital outlet, the Federalist, Sean Davis, said on X that the government should “criminally charge” Mr. Muir and Ms. Davis, along with ABC News executives, for campaign finance violations. He says the fact-checking of Trump but not of Ms. Harris was an in-kind contribution to the Harris campaign. 

Most post-debate polls found that undecided voters swung heavily in Ms. Harris’s favor following the candidates’ performances, though Trump maintains that he felt he won the night. Still, he said on Wednesday morning that he is not inclined to debate again despite Ms. Harris’s offer to do so. 

“I don’t know that I want to do another debate,” Trump said. “I’d be less inclined to because we had a great night. We won the debate. We had a terrible network. I think they should be embarrassed. They kept correcting me.”

“They should have corrected — six or seven times, she told an outright lie,” Trump said of Ms. Harris.