THIS IS CNN: CNN Releases Statement Downplaying Obvious Anti-Trump Bias of Debate Moderators.
“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.”
* * * * * * * *
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.
And who has written a book about the president organizing a “plot to steal” an election. No not that Republican president, this one:
Props will not be allowed at the debate, so unfortunately Trump cannot just bring this book to the debate and place it on his podium facing the cameras.
By the way, Team Trump, if you bring up the title, Tapper will reply the editor chose the title or some b***shit like that. Be prepared for that, and be prepared to respond that he could have objected if he didn’t like the “editor-suggested” title. No author is forced to accept an editor-recommended title.
Tapper himself chose the title because he’s a hard partisan selling to a hard partisan audience and he knew a hard-partisan title would help sell books. (Although he doesn’t really sell books.)
* * * * * * * *
To be fair though, past performance is no guarantee of future — wait, it’s CNN we’re talking about here — who am I kidding?
It’s been twelve years since the infamous moment when CNN’s Candy Crowley interjected herself into the presidential debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, providing a live “fact check” which was, in reality, her factually inaccurate opinion.
The moment was embarrassing enough that debate commission co-chair Frank Fahrenkopf would later describe their selection of Crowley as a moderator as a “mistake“; she was widely criticized for both inserting herself too much into the debate and letting it get out of hand.
Well, if you thought an Obama-Romney debate could go off the rails, just wait for this week’s Joe Biden Donald Trump rematch — moderated this time around by another pair of CNN anchors, including the woman who replaced Crowley as chief political correspondent, Dana Bash. Bash and co-moderator Jake Tapper will already be equipped with advantages other moderators haven’t had, including shutting off the microphones of the president and former president in between questions.
But as Charles Cooke predicts, “Thursday is going to be the mirror image of 2020:”
“Supermajorities . . . of Americans think he’s too old,” Cooke said, “so he’s going in and he doesn’t just have to survive. . . . This therefore has created a debate where the roles are reversed. I think what . . . Trump has to do is just seem normal.
“We can talk about all of the expectations we like,” Cooke said, “but to me . . . Thursday is going to be the mirror image of 2020.
“If Trump can stand there, deliver a carefully selected set of haymakers on topics that matter to people — not the election of 2020 — on topics that matter to people, get through his answers sounding reasonably coherent, I think he wins the debate.”
The spin from the DNC-MSM Thursday night will be absolutely incredible to witness, no matter what happens.