CNN presidential debate moderators have long history of blasting Trump — including with Hitler comparison
The two CNN anchors set to host Thursday’s first 2024 presidential debate have previously called Donald Trump’s first term a “national nightmare” and compared his language to that of Adolf Hitler.
“State of the Union” co-hosts Dana Bash and Jake Tapper — who have a long history of criticizing the former president and current presidential candidate — will be responsible for posing questions to both Trump and President Biden at the CNN forum set for 9 p.m. in Atlanta, Ga.
Tapper, the network’s lead Washington anchor, has called the 45th president a “desperate electoral loser” in the past, suggested Trump spread “Russian propaganda” — and has said that if re-elected, the former president will try to “kill democracy.
“He did try to kill democracy once, and he’s going to try to do it again,” Tapper said on air in December 2021. “But this time with a little help from his friends.”
Tapper also has compared Trump’s language about “poisoning the blood of our country” to Hitler’s manifesto “Mein Kampf,” and in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riots, suggested that Trump incited a “terrorist attack” on America.
“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.
Bash, also CNN’s host of “Inside Politics,” has made sniping remarks targeting Trump, too.
She has argued that “unfortunately for America,” the US Supreme Court decided to keep Trump on the Colorado ballot and suggested that the former president incited “war” domestically during his first term.
“Maybe he didn’t start any new wars abroad, but he completely incited battle after battle and even, I would say, war domestically,” Bash said in January 2021 in response to Trump’s White House farewell video.
Bash also criticized the first Trump-Biden 2020 presidential debate for being a “s–t show” because of the former president.
She argued that the debate was a “bad reality TV show” and that Trump “took it too far” with his aggression during the match-up.
Tapper, in the same segment, called the debate a “disgrace” and said Trump was “rude” and “didn’t abide by any standards of decorum.”
A CNN spokesperson told The Post that there is “no two people better equipped” than Tapper and Bash to moderate the debate.
“Jake Tapper and Dana 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 CNN spokesperson said.
The former president’s campaign has already called out the CNN anchors for their previous comments about Trump, and rep Karoline Leavitt was abruptly cut off Monday morning for suggesting the hosts will give him a “hostile environment” during the debate.
Before the moderators were announced, Trump agreed to the CNN debate after calling on Biden to join him in abandoning the historic Commission on Presidential Debates in favor of having earlier forums in the election cycle.
Biden suggested the network host the first debate and also set out additional rules — including having a candidate’s microphone cut off while their opponent is speaking.
One source close to the Republican National Committee told The Post that Trump agreeing to the CNN debate before the moderator selection was announced may come back to haunt him.
“While a month or two ago it seemed incredibly risky for the president to challenge the former president to debate, it now looks like Biden masterfully hoodwinked Trump, who walked into the trap and accepted the debate — in the hopes that he could pillory Biden — without doing the due diligence that campaigns always do, including moderator selection,” the source said.
Leavitt argued that Trump will win Thursday’s debate, despite the moderator selection.
“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 in a statement to The Post. 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 and Biden are also set to face off Sept. 10 for a second debate hosted by ABC News.
