Posted on 06/24/2024 4:35:14 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Former President Donald Trump will be stepping into a left-wing minefield on Thursday when he debates President Biden on CNN, whose moderators have compared him to Adolf Hitler.
In May, Mr. Trump immediately accepted CNN’s invitation to debate Mr. Biden. The president took to social media and directly challenged his rival to participate.
Since then, Trump supporters have lamented what they call unfavorable terms of the debate. The candidates will have no live audience and no chance to interrupt each other. Jake Tapper and Dana Bash have been chosen as the moderators.
“Trump agreed to the moderators and rules that clearly favor Biden,” political analyst and Democratic campaign consultant Douglas Schoen said. “Fully expect that Trump will be at a significant disadvantage of his own making on Thursday night.”
The Trump campaign on Monday battled CNN hosts ahead of the debate, which will take place at the network’s Atlanta headquarters.
They made the case that Ms. Bash and Mr. Tapper have broadcast their disdain for Mr. Trump. In one instance, they accused Mr. Trump of using “the dehumanizing rhetoric of Adolf Hitler.” In another, they called his presidency a “long national nightmare.”
Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt attempted to call out the network’s bias against the former president in a CNN segment Monday morning, but the show’s host abruptly cut her off midsentence.
Before CNN ended the interview, Ms. Leavitt signaled that the Trump campaign knows what it is facing by agreeing to debate terms largely set by the network and the Biden campaign team.
Mr. Trump, she said, “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.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
The best way to stop this debate network ego bias is to go back to the way debates were moderated prior to 1996. Prior to the 1996 debates, the network broadcasting the debate had the host limited to moderating the debate, that is, timekeeping and enforcing the rules. A separate panel of questioners were from mixed media, including the competing networks and print journalists. Beginning with the 1996 debates, the only people questioning the candidates were from the network hosting the debates.
By going back to past practices, perhaps the other talent at the hosting network won't be so defensive when guests come on the air to talk about the debates? It's too much for one (or two) to do: moderate the timekeeping and rules, ask the questions, listen to the answers, follow up with other questions.
It's better to let the moderate focus on moderating while the panelists focus on the questions and answers.
Case in point: Chris Wallace moderating the third debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
With time running out, Wallace asked Trump if he'd accept the results of the election.
The next day Wallace said that he lost track and "forgot" to ask Clinton the same question.Wallace: Mr. Trump, I want to ask you about one last question in this topic. You’ve been warning at rallies recently that this election is rigged and that Hillary Clinton is in the process of trying to steal it from you. Your running mate Governor Pence pledged on Sunday that he and you, his words, will absolutely accept the result of this election. Today your daughter Ivanka said the same thing. I want to ask you here on the stage tonight, do you make the same commitment that you’ll absolutely accept the result of the election.
Trump: I will look at it at the time. I’m not looking at anything now, I’ll look at it at the time. What I’ve seen, what I’ve seen, is so bad. First of all, the media is so dishonest and so corrupt and the pile on is so amazing. “The New York Times” actually wrote an article about it, but they don’t even care. It is so dishonest, and they have poisoned the minds of the voters. But unfortunately for them, I think the voters are seeing through it. I think they’re going to see through it, we’ll find out on November 8th, but I think they’re going to see through it. If you look --
Wallace: But, but --
Trump: Excuse me, Chris. If you look at your voter rolls, you will see millions of people that are registered to vote. Millions. This isn’t coming from me. This is coming from Pew report and other places. Millions of people that are registered to vote that shouldn’t be registered to vote. So let me just give you one other thing. I talk about the corrupt media. I talk about the millions of people. I’ll tell you one other thing. She shouldn’t be allowed to run. It’s -- She’s guilty of a very, very serious crime. She should not be allowed to run, and just in that respect I say it’s rigged because she should never --
Wallace: But, but --
Trump: Chris. She should never have been allowed to run for the presidency based on what she did with e-mails and so many other things.
Wallace: But, sir, there is a tradition in this country, in fact, one of the prides of this country is the peaceful transition of power and no matter how hard fought a campaign is that at the end of the campaign, that the loser concedes to the winner. Not saying you’re necessarily going to be the loser or the winner, but that the loser concedes to the winner and the country comes together in part for the good of the country. Are you saying you’re not prepared now to commit to that principle?
Trump: What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense, okay?
Clinton: Well Chris, let me respond to that because that’s horrifying. You know, every time Donald thinks things aren’t going in his direction, he claims whatever it is, is rigged against him. The FBI conducted a yearlong investigation into my e-mails. They concluded there was no case. He said the FBI was rigged. He lost the Iowa caucus, he lost the Wisconsin primary, he said the Republican primary was rigged against him. Then, Trump University gets sued for fraud and racketeering. He claims the court system and the federal judge is rigged against him. There was even a time when he didn’t get an Emmy for his TV program three years in a row and he started tweeting that the Emmys were rigged against him.
Trump: Should have gotten it.
(Laughter)
Clinton: This is a mind-set. This is how Donald thinks, and it’s funny, but it’s also really troubling. That is not the way our democracy works. We’ve been around for 240 years. We’ve had free and fair elections. We’ve accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them, and that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage during a general election. You know, President Obama said the other day when you’re whining before the game is even finished--
(Applause)
Wallace: Hold on, folks.
Clinton:-- It just shows you’re not up to doing the job. And let’s be clear about what he’s saying and what that means. He’s denigrating, he is talking down our democracy. And I, for one, am appalled that somebody who is the nominee of one of our two major parties would take that kind of position.
Trump: I think what the FBI did and what the Department of Justice did, including meeting with her husband, the Attorney General, in the back of an airplane on the tarmac in Arizona, I think it’s disgraceful. I think it’s a disgrace.
Wallace: All right.
Trump: I think we’ve never had a situation so bad
(Applause)
Wallace: Hold on, folks. This doesn’t do any good for anyone. Let’s please continue the debate and let’s move onto the subject of foreign hotspots...
To this day, President Trump is still being hounded over accepting the results of elections while Clinton is still acting as if she were the true winner in 2016.
This is what happens when debates are not conducted with separation of responsibilities. Moderating debates has become an exercise in ego management, not debate management. It's time to go back to the old ways of having a dedicated panel of questioners separate from the moderation of the debate.
-PJ
Trump needs to get out of this
I would be extremely disappointed in him if he didn’t
Would be a terrible decision if he goes ahead with it. His handlers should have said something
Either his decision is awful or his handler decisions are horrible.
If Trump did what you said, they will just cut his mike.
Hannity thinks the two Dem operatives from CNN will interrupt and refuse to let Trump finish.
And obvious questions: “You have promised to bring violence and revenge all over the country on your first day in office. Do you intend to protect the KKK and other white supremacist backers you called “good people” at Charlottesville?”
Or “What was the date you stopped torturing puppies?”
I think the sound system will favor Biden and hurt Trump.
Maybe even off and on deletes of parts of some of his words due to unfortunate technical problems. Or a strained, scratchy quality to Trump’s apparent voice to make him sound like a cruel corporation boss.
I see nothing good coming out of this debate.
We should know by now to not put anything past these traitorous MSM hacks.
Trump needs to mention the daughter’s diary when they get really nasty. That will shut them up.
At which point the moderator will inturrupt him. If he tries to continue, they will cut his mic.
Of course they can. It's their mic.
I like that.
I agree... for _resident Potato.
I see _resident Potato pooping his pants, forgetting what he is saying and maybe even sniffing Dana's hair or pinching her... you know.
Like Barrack Hussein Obama said, "Never underestimate _resident Potato's ability to f___ things up."
All Trump has to do it be Trump. _resident Potato will do the rest.
“Of course they can. It’s their mic.”
You mean you think that while Trump is talking and making his point, they will mute his mic before the world. They are not quite that stupid. Much too blatant.
All Trump has to do is get up and walk off, the first time. The whiny bitch Chris Wallace interrupted Trump, but he would not have dared to mute his mic.
Of course they will. They will chastise him for not answering their question, or for "lying". They will show him who is control.
"I'm sorry, but we can't allow you to slander us like that."
If Trump mentions Joe showering with his daughter and joe flashes that creepy Joker grin, it’s over. Really high steaks debate.
Winston Churchill said, “When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite”.
Do you think there would be any honest results of such a test? Look what happened to the George Floyd autopsy.
They want to hold back trump so he will explode, this is a gag order presidential debate, I will not be watching, a staged clown show
Why would anyone waste time watching this farce?
If the Dems truly didn’t expect Trump to agree then it follows that they can’t let Biden show up. If there is some sudden emergency that calls the commander in chief away from the debate...
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