'He was hacked, it didn't happen': Debate commission defends moderator Steve Scully after cryptic tweet about Trump sparks outrage

C-SPAN's Steve Scully, who was slated to host the next presidential debate, is under fire over a now-deleted cryptic tweet about Trump sent to Anthony Scaramucci. The debates commission has claimed he was "hacked."

The context-less tweet was posted on Thursday night sparking speculation that it was meant to be a private direct message, not a public tweet, as many called into question Scully’s ability to fairly moderate the face-off between Trump and challenger Joe Biden.

“Should I respond to Trump” Scully tweeted to Scaramucci, former White House Communications Director, who has since become one of the president’s most vocal mainstream media critics. Many instantly suggested the pair were in cahoots or “coordinating” against Trump.

Scaramucci’s response only added fuel to the fire. He replied with his own mysterious tweet, telling the C-SPAN host to “ignore” Trump because he was having a “hard enough time” and that some more “bad stuff about to go down.”

In a twist, however, Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chairman of the Commission on Presidential Debates, told Fox News on Friday morning that the host’s account had been "hacked" prior to it sending the controversial tweet. "He was hacked. It didn't happen," Fahrenkopf told the network.

A statement posted by C-Span also stated that Scully did not send the tweeted and believed he had been hacked.

Given the fact that the tweet was online for more than 10 hours, however, quite a few commenters had already seized on it, with some suggesting it was “disqualifying” for a moderator to possibly be consulting with a fierce Trump critic.

Others simply mocked him for the Twitter fail.

“If you select me as your moderator, I promise to at the very least not be a sketchy boomer and tweet out my private [direct messages],”quipped conservative host Saagar Enjeti.

The Twitter backlash marks a second instance of Scully being accused of anti-Trump bias. It was previously revealed that the slated debate moderator had been an intern for Joe Biden when he was a senator in Delaware.

Judging by responses to the claims of hacking on Twitter, most were not buying the excuse, with many saying if he really was hacked, it should be easy to prove.

The second debate was scheduled to take place on October 15 in Florida, but was switched to a “virtual” format by the Commission on Presidential Debates on Thursday, due to Trump’s diagnosis with Covid-19. Trump rejected the notion of a virtual debate, however, saying he wouldn’t “waste his time” on it. It’s unclear when, or even if, the second debate will now go ahead at all.

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