CNN is facing the public’s fire over its allegedly unfair choices of debate moderators for his upcoming debate with President Joe Biden, namely by choosing a moderator with a “history of anti=Trump lies” and then, when his campaign spokesperson appeared on CNN on the morning of Monday, June 24, abruptly cutting the feed when called out over the moderator choices.
As background, Trump National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared on CNN and was cut-off mid-interview by the CNN anchor, Kasie Hunt. That came when Leavitt sounded off on CNN’s decision to have Jake Tapper, a far-left CNN host with a history of derogatory comments about former President Trump, be one of the moderators for the debate. She also criticized CNN’s choice of Dana Bash as the other moderator.
She said, as reference, before Hunt pulled the plug on the interview and cut her off, “That’s why President Trump is knowingly going into a hostile environment on this very network, on CNN, with debate moderators who have made their opinions about him very well known over the past eight years. And their biased coverage of him.”
Hunt, then, before pulling the plug, said, “So I‘ll just say my colleagues, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, have acquitted themselves as professionals as they have covered campaigns and interviewed candidates from all sides of the aisle. I‘ll also say that if you talk to analysts of previous debates, that if you’re attacking the moderators, you’re usually losing.”
Watch the interview incident here:
Then, after the incident, Leavitt, spoke about the matter with Fox News Digital, saying, “CNN cutting off my microphone for bringing up a debate moderator’s history of anti-Trump lies just proves our point that President Trump will not be treated fairly in Thursday’s debate. Yet President Trump is still willing to go into this 3-1 fight to bring his winning message to the American people, and he will win.”
A CNN spokesperson, on the other hand, speaking to Fox News, said that both Tapper and Bash are “well respected veteran journalists who have covered politics for more than five decades combined.” The spokesperson continued, “They have extensive experience moderating major political debates, including CNN’s Republican Presidential Primary Debate this cycle. There are no two people better equipped to co-moderate a substantial and fact-based discussion and we look forward to the debate on June 27 in Atlanta.”
Leavitt also sounded off on Monday when speaking to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon about the incident, saying, “President Trump delivers on his promises. And he said repeatedly, came from him, he will debate Joe Biden anytime, anywhere, anyplace. And so here we are. We’re headed to Atlanta Thursday night. But CNN showed their hand with me on their network this morning.”
Continuing, she said, “The fact that they cut off my microphone simply for repeating words that Jake Tapper himself has said, lies about President Trump. So Jake Tapper can go on the air and spew those lies all they want. But when I simply tried to repeat them, which is relevant because he’s a moderator at Thursday’s debate, they cut me off and kicked me off. It was honestly shocking what occurred this morning.”
Watch her here:
Trump spoke about the debate and Tapper earlier in June when speaking to Logan Paul, saying, “Fake [Jake] Tapper and lots of other people that were involved on CNN, [the Biden campaign] wanted to be seated, which I didn’t like. I said we should stand and I think we won that point.”
Continuing, he added, “But I would have agreed to whatever I had agreed to because they didn’t want to do it. They thought that I wouldn’t do it because it’s CNN, but I’ve done plenty of CNN. I did a town hall not so long ago with CNN that worked out well. But I think they’ll be fair. I think they’re gonna try to be fair. As fair as they can be.”
“But I think that it’s important for there to be a debate. So [the Biden campaign] said, ‘You want to debate?’ ‘Yep, I’ll accept. You don’t even have to tell me.’ Then they said CNN, they said the different people that are involved, but let’s see what happens. I used to get along with [debate moderator] Jake Tapper. We’ll see what happens, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it is,” Trump added.
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