CNN’s Jake Tapper compared former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler, and Dana Bash’s ex-husband signed onto the infamous letter that dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation ahead of the 2020 election. Yet both of these so-called journalists are supposed to moderate a fair presidential debate this Thursday.
CNN’s long history of anti-Trump bias will undoubtedly permeate the moderators’ line of questioning in favor of President Joe Biden, but here are five questions the moderators would ask Biden if they wanted to host a truly fair debate.
1) “When you took office, inflation was 1.4 percent. Under your leadership, inflation hit 9 percent. Why do you blame Trump for that?”
Biden has consistently lied about his record on inflation, telling Yahoo Finance in May that inflation was “at 9 percent” when he entered office. Inflation was actually at 1.4 percent when he took office and did not reach 9.1 percent until 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
2) “What would you do differently in the next four years to bring down inflation that you could not have done these past four years?”
These past four years, Biden has done nothing but spend, spend, spend. Under Biden, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package in 2021, with a focus on repairing roads and bridges. Notably, the Francis Scott Key bridge collapsed earlier this year after a boat struck one of the supporting columns, killing six members of the crew that were working on the bridge at the time of the collapse.
Meanwhile, the Rapidan Dam in Minnesota is in “imminent failure condition” after severe flooding.
Biden also signed the roughly $750 billion “Inflation Reduction Act” which was originally touted to, well, reduce inflation. Biden later admitted the goal of the legislation was to promote his climate change policies.
3) “For years you have said you did all you could to secure the border. During the last few weeks, you have taken executive action to implement policies related to illegal immigration. What changed in four years and why did you wait?”
Biden repeatedly claimed he was unsure whether he “has the power all by himself without legislation” to shut down the southern border, even claiming doing so could possibly draw rebuke from the high court. Notably, Biden did not care what the Supreme Court had to say when he ignored its ruling on his bailout for student loan borrowers.
Biden has since changed tune, taking executive action to suspend the “entry of noncitizens who cross the Southern border into the United States unlawfully.” But as my colleague John Daniel Davidson notes, the “order itself belies the fact that it’s pure window dressing that won’t actually reduce illegal immigration.”
4) “The New York Times and other outlets have criticized you for avoiding interviews and speaking to the press. You have the lowest rate of interaction with the media than both of your predecessors. What’s your response?”
The New York Times called it “troubling” that Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.” Last year, the Times and other outlets noted that Biden had held the fewest number of news conferences since former President Ronald Reagan. That’s after the Biden administration claimed his presidency would be marked by “truth and transparency.”
5) “President Biden, you have continually said, ‘No one is above the law,’ and that legal decisions, such as Trump’s conviction, must be respected. Where then do you get the authority to ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling when it comes to student loans?”
After the former No. 3 in Biden’s Department of Justice helped secure a show trial conviction of Trump, overseen by a Biden donor in a Manhattan court, Biden said the ruling “reaffirmed” that “no one is above the law,” and that the system of justice “should be respected.”
Yet Biden flouted the Supreme Court after it stopped his plan to force taxpayers to foot the bill for unpaid student loans.
“Early in my term, I announced a major plan to provide millions of working families with debt relief for their college student debt,” Biden said. “My MAGA Republican friends in the Congress, elected officials and special interests stepped in and sued us. And the Supreme Court blocked it. But that didn’t stop me.”