CNN Releases Statement Downplaying Obvious Anti-Trump Bias of Debate Moderators
CNN issued a statement in defense of Jake Tapper and Dana Bash as the hosts face mounting criticism from Donald Trump's camp ahead of Thursday's first presidential debate.
"Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are well respected veteran journalists who have covered politics for more than five decades combined," started the statement.
"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."
Earlier Monday, CNN host Kacie Hunt abruptly ended an interview with Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said that Trump was "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."
Watch below:
We acknowledge the importance of not judging a performance before it begins. Perhaps Tapper and Bash will prove skeptics wrong on Thursday by moderating a fair and balanced debate.
However, skepticism is warranted. Tapper and Bash are not impartial journalists on the topic of Donald Trump.
Let's start with Tapper, who has repeatedly likened Trump to Adolf Hitler.
"If you were to open up a copy of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf,’ you would find the Nazi leader describing the mixing of non-Germans with Germans as poisoning. The Jew, Hitler wrote, ‘poisons the blood of others’ … Donald Trump’s language mirrors this directly," Tapper said in December 2023.
Meanwhile, Bash was an ardent supporter of the draconian attempts to remove Donald Trump from a primary ballot earlier this year:
Further, Bash's ex-husband, Jeremy, is one of the 51 U.S. intelligence veterans who signed a letter suggesting the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story could be part of a Russian disinformation operation.
Jeremy Bash also encouraged the news media to treat the laptop report as propaganda.
"The story look[s] like Russian intelligence and walks like Russian intelligence," Bash, the former Chief of State at the CIA and Department of Defense, told MSNBC at the time.
"This effort by Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post and Steve Bannon to cook up supposed dirt on Joe Biden looks like a classic, Russian playbook disinformation campaign," he added.
His wife is now responsible for posing questions to Trump and Hunter's father.
The suppression of the laptop story had a profound impact on the 2020 election. At least one in six Biden voters say they would have changed their vote had they been aware of the scandal's validity.
Thereby, Hunter's laptop and the damning information it provided – specifically in terms of influence peddling – should be a question for Biden on stage Thursday.
Other questions should focus on the economy, illegal immigration, funding for Ukraine, military supply for Israel, Trump's felony conviction, rampant crime and the ages of the two candidates.
We'd also like to see the moderators press both men on why documents regarding 9/11, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and Jeffrey Epstein remain classified. Maybe there's a good reason. But we can't think of one. Trust in U.S. institutions is at an all-time low and the government keeping secrets about some of the most horrific events in history is part of the reason why.
Anyway, we'll dial back our expectations, knowing Tapper and Bash are at the helm.
Trump enters the debate as the beating favorite, holding a -111 to + +182 lead over Biden, per OddsChecker.
I recently posted an early look at my projected electoral map:
This country, already fragile, couldn't handle the much dreaded 270-268 scenario – nonetheless:
The moderators are likely to press Biden and Trump about conceding amid a razor-thin outcome.
Ultimately, both Biden and Trump agreed to the rules of the debate, which include muted microphones outside their speaking time, no live audience, no pre-written notes, and no consulting with campaign aides during breaks.
While the rules seem to favor Biden on the surface, Trump hurt himself mightily during the first debate in 2020 by perpetually interrupting Biden. Perhaps the more restricted format will prevent Trump from beating himself.