According to the Trump campaign, CNN is already setting the stage for an unfair debate between former President Trump and President Biden by selecting a debate moderator with a “history of anti-Trump lies” and abruptly cutting off an interview with a campaign spokesperson on Monday morning.
“CNN’s cutting off of my microphone for bringing up the debate moderator’s history of anti-Trump lies only proves our contention that President Trump will not be treated fairly in Thursday’s debate. But President Trump intends to take on this three-on-one battle to deliver a winning message to the American people, and he will win,” Trump campaign spokesperson Caroline Leavitt told Fox News Digital on Monday morning.
Leavitt was abruptly interrupted during an interview with CNN host Casey Hunt on Monday morning after he criticized CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, the moderators of Thursday’s debate between Trump and Biden.
“That’s why President Trump finds himself in a hostile environment at this network, at CNN, with debate moderators who have voiced their views against him for the last eight years, and with the knowledge of their biased reporting against him,” Levitt told CNN in preview of the debate.
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“I will simply say that my colleagues Jake Tapper and Dana Bash have done a very professional job covering the campaign and interviewing candidates from all walks of life. I will also tell you that if you talk to analysts of past debates, you will usually lose if you are attacking the moderator,” Hunt responded.
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As Hunt tried to steer the interview back to the debate preview, Leavitt said it would only take a few minutes for Tapper to list examples of anti-Trump comments he’s made over the years.
“Ma’am, if you continue to attack my colleague, I will end this interview,” Hunt said, before Leavitt added that the CNN host was “stating the facts” about what he has said about Trump so far.
Former President Trump addressed supporters at a local candidate rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on September 3, 2022. (Spencer Pratt/Getty Images)
“Sorry, everybody. We’ll be back to the panel,” Hunt said. “Caroline, thank you so much for your time. Please come back anytime. She’s welcome to come back and speak about Donald Trump. And Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be joining forces in the debate later this week in Atlanta, where they will be given equal time.”
Ms Hunt said on Monday Morning’s X that guests must “respect their colleagues” when appearing on her show.
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“Please come on my show and respect my colleagues. That’s it. As my track record clearly shows, it doesn’t matter to me which side you’re on.” Posted by Hunt.
A CNN spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Monday morning that Tapper and Bash are “respected, veteran journalists with more than 50 years of combined experience covering politics.”
“They both have extensive experience hosting major political debates, including this season’s Republican presidential primary debates on CNN, and we couldn’t be more suited to co-host a substantive, fact-based debate. We look forward to the debate in Atlanta on June 27,” the spokesperson continued.
Caroline Leavitt leaves Trump Tower in New York on April 25, 2024. (MEGA/GC Images/Getty Images)
Trump has already predicted there is a 90% chance that CNN’s upcoming debate will be unfair to him, and stressed that there is “about a 10% chance” that hosts Tapper and Bash will put on a fair debate.
“fake [Jake] Tapper and many others associated with CNN [the Biden campaign] “They wanted to sit down, and I didn’t like that. I said we should stand. I think I won on that point,” Trump said. Logan Paul’s “IMPAULSIVE” podcast “I would have accepted whatever I agreed to earlier this month because they didn’t want to do it. They thought I wouldn’t do it, but I’ve worked a lot with CNN. I did a town hall with CNN a while back that went well. But I think they’re fair. They’re going to try to be fair. They’re going to try to be as fair as they can.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper will co-host Thursday’s presidential debate. (Scott Kowalczyk/CBS via Getty Images)
“But I think it’s important to have that discussion. So [the Biden campaign] “Want to debate?” “Yes, I’d be happy to. You don’t have to say anything.” And then there’s CNN and all the different people involved, and we’ll see what happens. [debate moderator] “Jake Tapper. We’ll see what happens, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it matters,” Trump continued.
“They are [fair]”I think there’s a 10 percent chance of that happening,” Trump added.
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Tapper has a long history of anti-Trump rhetoric, including attempts to link Trump to Adolf Hitler, Leavitt noted in brief remarks on CNN on Monday. In December, Tapper linked Trump to Hitler after the 45th president said illegal immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”
During a recent CNN segment, CNN anchor Jake Tapper acknowledged that “Trump was right” when he accused Hunter Biden of corrupting for foreign interests during the 2020 presidential debate. (Fox News)
“With four weeks to go until Ohioans cast their first votes in the nation in the 2024 presidential election, Adolf Hitler’s dehumanizing rhetoric is once again coming to life on the national political stage – this time in the United States, of course – brought to life by former president and now front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump, whose views on immigration were made shockingly clear this weekend,” Tapper said, before playing a clip of Trump’s remarks. “If you read Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ you’ll see that the Nazi leader described interbreeding between Germans and non-Germans as poisoning. Hitler wrote that Jews ‘poison the blood of others.'”
Tapper also mourned Trump’s loss to Biden in 2020, declaring that “for tens of millions of Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”
“This is a time of extreme division, much of which has been created and exacerbated by President Trump himself,” Tapper said at the time.
President Biden spoke at the United Auto Workers convention in Washington, DC on January 24, 2024. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“During this time, there have been some serious and entirely avoidable failures, the most tragic of course being the failure to respect facts and science and do all we could to save lives during a pandemic. It was a time when truth and facts were despised,” he continued. “It was a brutal time when inhumane practices like child alienation became official, shameful US policy. But now, as President Trump’s term in office draws to a close, we are seeing the end of it all.”
Trump predicts there’s only a 10% chance CNN will give fair coverage of first presidential debate
Tapper also slammed Trump for contracting COVID-19 in 2020, claiming it “displayed a disregard for human life” and that Trump had become “a symbol of his own failures.” At the start of the pandemic, Tapper claimed Trump “continues to lie to the American people” about COVID-19 testing.
Trump held a rally on the campus of Temple University in Philadelphia over the weekend, and before the event he told Fox News that hosting campaign events was “really the best strategy” to prepare for Thursday’s debate.
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Former President Trump speaks to media after casting his vote at the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center in Palm Beach, Florida, on March 19, 2024. (Joe Raedl/Getty Images)
“There’s a lot of people here and they’re asking questions and I’m looking forward to the debate,” Trump said.
He added that he felt confident ahead of the debate but said he wasn’t worried about preparations for Thursday from Biden, who visited Camp David last Thursday and is expected to remain there leading up to the debate and continue preparations with senior officials.
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“Well, I think if he prepares, he’ll be OK. And he’ll prepare and then forget about it an hour or so later. So we’ll see what happens. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said.
Fox News Digital’s Hannah Panrec and Joseph Wolfson contributed to this report.
