Trump camp hits back after CNN host cuts feed, slams debate moderator's 'history of anti-Trump lies'
CNN has already set 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 ending an interview with the campaign’s spokeswoman on Monday morning, according to the Trump campaign.
"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," Trump national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital on Monday morning.
Leavitt was abruptly cut off during an interview with CNN host Kasie Hunt on Monday morning, 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. And their biased coverage of him," Leavitt said on CNN, previewing the debate.
"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," Hunt responded.
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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, before 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. "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."
Hunt followed up on X Monday morning that when guests join her show, they must "respect my colleagues."
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"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.
A CNN spokesperson told Fox News Digital 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, highlighting there was still a "good 10% chance" 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. I said we should stand and I think we won that point," Trump said on Logan Paul's "IMPAULSIVE" podcast earlier this month. "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, including trying to link Trump to Adolf Hitler, as Leavitt mentioned in her brief remarks on CNN Monday. 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. 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," Tapper said before playing the clip of Trump's remarks. "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."
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Tapper also shamed Trump after his COVID diagnosis in 2020, arguing it was "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.
Trump held a rally in Philadelphia over the weekend on Temple University’s campus, and told Fox News before it that holding campaign events is "really the best strategy" to prepare for Thursday’s debate.
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"We have all these people out here and they are screaming questions. I look forward to the debate," Trump said.
He added that he’s confident ahead of the debate, while noting he’s not worried about Biden’s preparations for Thursday. Biden traveled to Camp David last Thursday, where he is anticipated to remain until the debate, preparing with senior officials.
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"Well, I think if he prepares, he'll be fine. Then he will forget it within about an hour after preparing. So, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens," Trump said.
Fox News Digital's Hanna Panreck and Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.