CNN has revealed that it has no plans for a fair presidential debate after one of the network’s hosts cut the feed during an interview with President Donald Trump’s campaign spokeswoman.
Trump national press secretary Karoline Leavitt was abruptly cut off during an interview with CNN host Kasie Hunt on Monday morning.
Many have warned that the incident has set the stage for an unfair debate between Trump and Democrat President Joe Biden on Thursday.
The 45th president’s campaign responded to the biased on-air actions of Hunt by slamming the CNN debate moderator’s “history of anti-Trump lies.”
“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,” Leavitt said Monday morning.
“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.”
Leavitt was abruptly cut off by Hunt after criticizing CNN hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, who will moderate Thursday’s debate between Trump and Biden.
“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,” Leavitt said on CNN, previewing the debate.
“And their biased coverage of him.”
“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,” Hunt responded.
“I’ll also say that if you talk to analysts of previous debates, that if you’re attacking the moderators, you’re usually losing.”
As Hunt tried to redirect the interview back to previewing the debate, Leavitt said it would take just a few minutes to pull up examples of Tapper’s anti-Trump rhetoric across the years.
“Ma’am, I’m going to stop this interview if you’re going to continue to attack my colleagues,” Hunt said.
Leavitt continued that she was “stating facts” about what CNN hosts have previously said about Trump.
“I’m sorry, guys, we’re going to come back out to the panel,” Hunt said as she cut Leavitt’s microphone.
“Karoline, thank you very much for your time.
“You are welcome to come back at any point.
“She is welcome to come back and speak about Donald Trump, and Donald Trump will have equal time to Joe Biden when they both join us later this week in Atlanta for this debate.”
WATCH:
Hunt followed up on X Monday morning that when guests join her show, they must “respect my colleagues.”
“You come on my show, you respect my colleagues. Period.
“I don’t care what side of the aisle you stand on, as my track record clearly shows,” Hunt posted.
You come on my show, you respect my colleagues. Period. I don’t care what side of the aisle you stand on, as my track record clearly shows.
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) June 24, 2024
A CNN spokesperson said in a statement on Monday morning that Tapper and Bash are “well-respected veteran journalists who have covered politics for more than five decades combined.”
“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,” the spokesperson continued.
Trump had already predicted that the upcoming debate on CNN had a 90% chance of being unfair toward him.
He highlighted that there was still a “good 10% chance” that moderators Tapper and Bash would be fair.
“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,” Trump said on Logan Paul’s “IMPAULSIVE” podcast earlier this month.
“I said we should stand and I think we won that point.”
“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 continued.
“They might be [fair],” Trump added.
“I’d say a good 10% chance.”
Tapper has a long history of espousing anti-Trump rhetoric, as Leavitt mentioned in her brief remarks on CNN Monday.
Those statements include trying to link Trump to Adolf Hitler.
In December, Tapper tied Trump to Hitler following the 45th president’s remark that illegal* immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”
“With four weeks until Ohioans cast the nation’s first votes in the 2024 presidential race, the dehumanizing rhetoric of Adolf Hitler is once again alive and well on the national political stage,” Tapper said before playing the clip of Trump’s remarks.
“This time, of course, in the United States.
“This time, given life by former president and current Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, whose thoughts on immigrants were made shockingly crystal clear over the weekend.
“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, quote, ‘poisons the blood of others.’”
Back in 2020, Tapper also eulogized Trump’s loss to Biden, declaring that “for tens of millions of our fellow Americans: their long national nightmare is over.”
“It’s been a time of extreme divisions, many of the divisions caused and exacerbated by President Trump himself,” Tapper said at the time.
“It’s been a time of several significant and utterly avoidable failures, most tragically, of course, the unwillingness to respect facts and science and do everything that could be done to save lives during a pandemic.
“It has been a time where truth and fact were treated with disdain,” he continued.
“It was a time of cruelty where official inhumanities such as child separation became the official shameful policy of the United States.
“But now the Trump presidency is coming to an end.”
Tapper also blamed Trump for his COVID-19 diagnosis in 2020.
He argued that it was “a demonstration of a wanton disregard for human life” and that Trump became a “symbol of his own failures.”
At the start of the pandemic, Tapper claimed Trump “continues to lie to the American people” about Covid testing.
