I'm not going to let you say CNN is biased.
Posted on 06/26/2024 4:08:07 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
It’s almost here... the first presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump will take place tomorrow night on CNN. It is quite early in the election cycle, which is by design to account for the fact that many voters now cast their ballots via mail or in an early voting period.
Perhaps the biggest surprise is that Biden agreed to debate this early, which could signal his campaign’s uneasiness with polls showing the president trailing in most swing states, losing by double digits on the issues that matter most to voters and hemorrhaging support among various key voting blocs, despite what they may say in public (When First Lady Jill Biden was asked about polls showing Biden losing battleground states, she sharply replied, “No, he’s not!”)
While it would be easy to straightforwardly classify the debate as Biden versus Trump, these fights promise to be more impactful: Biden versus himself and Trump versus the moderators.
Biden’s perceived success in the debate almost entirely depends on his ability to make it through the ninety-minute-plus-two-commercial-breaks live event. There have been multiple viral videos of Biden in the past few weeks during a D-Day commemoration in Normandy, a Juneteenth event at the White House and a campaign event in LA that show him looking stiff and confused. The White House has rejected these clips as “cheap fakes,” a term coined by a former Harvard disinformation researcher that hasn’t landed well with the public. Of course, low expectations work in the president’s favor — and the Trump campaign has warned that Biden may be on performance-enhancing drugs. There will be no drug test, of course, but we also know that the president has taken a full week off of presidential duties in order to debate prep in private.
Some conservatives have speculated that the week out of the public eye is being used to adjust Biden’s sleep schedule so that he is at his most alert during the debate. We don’t have any way of verifying that theory, but we do know that Trump did not take a seven-day break ahead of the first 2020 debate; just three days prior, he held a Rose Garden event to announce that he was nominating then-judge Amy Coney Barrett to serve on the Supreme Court.
While Biden battles himself, Trump is going to war with the CNN moderators, particularly anchor Jake Tapper. Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, described CNN as a “hostile” environment and the moderators as “biased” during an interview on the network. Leavitt urged viewers to “Google ‘Jake Tapper Donald Trump,’” prompting anchor Kasie Hunt to cut her mic and end the segment. “Ma’am, I’m going to stop this interview if you continue to attack my colleagues,” Hunt said before making good on her promise.
The moment sparked social media threads and articles about Tapper’s bias against the former president, including a compilation video of Tapper comparing Trump’s rhetoric to Hitler and clips of Tapper elevating the Russian collusion conspiracy theory and referring to the Trump presidency as a “time of cruelty” and “utterly avoidable failures.” Bash, meanwhile, described it as “[unfortunate] for America” that the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could not be removed from the ballot by state-level actors. With microphones being cut off between answers, the questions these moderators choose to ask of the candidates will play a larger than usual role in determining the tenor of the debate.
“Perhaps the biggest surprise is that Biden agreed to debate this early“
Biden didn’t agree to an early debate, someone else did.
Who we don’t know.
Many speculate, probably correctly, that it gives the DNC time to show Biden the door if need be.
Is there a way to watch the debate online?
I am out of town tomorrow evening. I will read the commentaries on FR on Friday. The posts are the best!
If Joe is able to perform well, he gets to stay in the campaign, if not, this gives the Democrats the excuse they need to replace him with Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom.
I surprise myself by how much I am anticipating this debate.
Almost as much as a Sports fan awaits the Super Bowl.
I won’t even be watching, though. At least not the whole thing, live.
I have a part time job on Thursdays.
I will harvest the sound bites, gifs and headlines de facto style.
All President Trump has to do is OPEN with a comment about how he is here to make America great again and NOT make you, CNN nor joe biden look good.
Drugs are a vehicle for the psycho op they've performed on/in him.
Follow the next one or two Q's with, "I don't have to answer your questions, YOU have to air MY policies because this is not a debate, it's a Q&A session, which I did NOT agree to.
Do you remember Laken Riley, the innocent nursing student brutally raped and murdered by joe biden's elimination of my insurance of a working wall and his open door for every manner of criminal to invade our nation?
A couple of off script comments and the entire CNN "program" will have to take an emergency commercial break.
We know what to expect and Trump will probably handle them pretty well. But, after all these years, why do the Republicans still fail to get a conservative as part of these moderator panels???
Biden has way more than enough delegates to clinch the 2024 Democrat nomination for president. How can the DNC remove him if he doesn’t want to go?
Other FReepers have said that the DNC could threaten Biden. Or maybe bribe him. Well, okay. But if Joe digs in his heels, I think he’s staying.
And by “Joe”, I mean Joe and his wife, Jill. Jill is probably calling the shots in this regard.
> I won’t even be watching, though. <
I won’t be watching, either. It would be like watching a football game where the opposing team gets to pick all the referees. Bad for the blood pressure.
I’ll wait for the next-day commentary from my fellow FReepers.
I'm not going to let you say CNN is biased.
CNN, which is known as the Clinton news network or the DNCNN should’ve never been awarded hosting another Republican debate after the Donna Brazile cheating by giving all the questions to Hitlery. That should’ve been an automatic disqualification from any RNC debate! Why were they rewarded with another sham cheating debate? Trump really stepped on it this time. He could’ve easily flipped the tables around on them, but instead acted like a big man with a big ego. I will debate anytime anywhere with any moderator etc… Take a good look what they’re gonna do to him during the sham show tomorrow . Our base will be reeling after the debate tomorrow night! Every imaginable get Trump or stop Trump is going to be thrown at him from every which way, including the outside sources who are supposed to be journalists will straight out lie to the American people with their fact checks. Don’t you know that the 16 people at camp David are probably all the media institutions colluding to bring Trump down tomorrow night. And I am going to go ahead and call the debate winner for FJB…. Trump threw him a lifeline…sad! This nation is deeply divided, and unfortunately, this race is still neck in neck. Do not believe what the pollsters are dishing out. It’s a tight race. It can go either way!<p%
Anything can happen from here to November 5 and believe me the DC swamp along with the judicial branch, including the Supreme Court, Will be working feverishly to defeat Trump . It’s a do or die for our nation and the DC swamp knows that it’s a do or die for their shadow government too if Trump wins!
I too will not be watching the disaster awaiting Trump! Unfortunately Trump chose unwisely! DANG!
I’ll say it: CNN is biased.
Q Poll just out: Trump plus 4!!
The debate commission recommended this microphone for Trump.
I expect a lot of attacks by Biden on Trump and a lot of interference by the "moderators" whenever Trump tries to refute any lies by Biden.
It may be like Merchan allowing the prosecutors to keep interrupting Costello at the trial to minimize any impact his testimony might have on the jurors.
I can't stand to listen to Biden or Tapper so I haven't decided whether to try to watch the debate or just wait until the commentary afterwards (which is certain to include clips of the best zingers by either candidate).
Thanks in advance to all the FReepers who are going to watch the debate. I can’t stand to look at President mashed potato brains, much less hear him so I’ll be monitoring the debate here on FR.
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