Analysis | Trump’s predictable campaign to discredit the debate moderators (2024)

Former president Donald Trump is reverting to predictable territory ahead of Thursday’s debate: Aggressively attacking the debate moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper of CNN — even though his campaign agreed to the terms of the debate weeks ago.

It’s a tactic Trump has used time and time again, aiming to redirect expectations and delegitimize the process as he heads into the first of two crucial debates this presidential cycle.

For instance:

Leavitt, Trump campaign spokeswoman, said that they are just speaking the facts — saying that the moderators have “a long history of anti-Trump statements and bias against he president.”

She said Trump is “still willing to go into this three on one fight to bring his message to the American people” and that the moderators have an opportunity to “prove us wrong and host a truly unbiased debate.”

“Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are well respected veteran journalists who have covered politics for more than five decades combined,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. “There are no two people better equipped to co-moderate a substantial and fact-based discussion.”

Trump prodded Biden for months to debate him, saying he would debate him at any time or anywhere. His team agreed to the terms of the debate, including who the moderators would be, that the microphone for the candidate not speaking would be cut off and that there would be no in-person audience. Now, he has been dismissing the rules and the moderators.

A person close to Trump who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations said that Trump truly doesn’t like Tapper and believes he is biased.

But the Republican source said it’s also “Trump being Trump,” adding that “there’s nothing unusual about any of this stuff in terms of how it’s playing out.”

True. It’s a tactic he deployed ahead of the debates in 2020 when he repeatedly attacked NBC News’s Kristen Welker, the moderator of that cycle’s final debate, calling her “a dyed-in-the-wool, radical-left Democrat.” The Murdoch-owned New York Post ran a story suggesting that she has “deep Democratic ties,” which became a segment on “Fox & Friends,” our colleague Jeremy Barr reported at the time.

Trump’s playbook to discredit the process to his supporters goes beyond the debates. For years, starting with his 2016 campaign for president, he worked to discredit the media by calling out media outlets and journalists and falsely calling the press the “enemy of the people.”

“It’s called pre-bunking. He’s preparing his audience to dismiss the entire event,” said Joan Donovan, professor of media studies at Boston University who studies disinformation and misinformation campaigns. “It’s a communication strategy that is part of his playbook.”

The Biden campaign says it’s not surprised by Trump’s attacks.

“We are confident the moderators will do their jobs as independent journalists,” a senior Biden adviser said. “Joe Biden will be focused on his job, which is laying out his vision for a second term and contrasting that with what life would be like under Donald Trump.”

Trump is using the same strategy by falsely suggesting Biden will be on drugs for the debate, our colleague Hannah Knowles reports:

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) lost his primary to Westchester County Executive George Latimer in an expensive race that split the Democratic Party.

It wasn’t close. Latimer defeated Bowman 58.4 percent to 41.6 percent.

Bowman won his seat in 2020 by running against Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel from the left, and his loss marks the first time a member of the progressive “Squad” of House Democrats has lost to a more moderate challenger.

Latimer ran ads that accused Bowman of putting “his extreme ideology” ahead of voters. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee endorsed him, and its super PAC spent more than $14.8 million to help Latimer beat him — an enormous amount in a House primary, even in the expensive New York City media market.

Bowman was one of the first lawmakers to call for a cease-fire in Gaza, earning AIPAC’s anger, but his criticism of Israel was not the only reason he lost. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor last year for pulling a fire alarm in a House office building when there was no fire, while Latimer benefited from relationships he formed over decades in local politics.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) endorsed Bowman and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) campaigned for him, but some of Bowman’s Democratic colleagues did not rush to his defense. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) endorsed Latimer on Monday.

Bowman is the first incumbent to lose his seat to a challenger this year, although last week’s primary between Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) and his challenger, state Sen. John McGuire, remains too close to call. (Rep. Jerry Carl (R-Ala.) also lost his primary to Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.) in March after they decided to run in the same districts due to redistricting.)

On the Republican side, Trump-endorsed candidates lost their primaries in three races.

Rep. John Curtis easily won the Republican primary for the seat that Sen. Mitt Romney is relinquishing, defeating Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs 52 percent to 29 percent.

Staggs has Trump’s endorsem*nt, but Curtis raised far more money and had super PAC support.

Curtis has not endorsed Trump, though he has said he’ll vote for the Republican nominee.

Jeff Crank, a former talk radio host, demolished Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dave Williams in the primary for retiring Rep. Doug Lamborn’s safely Republican seat.

Crank beat Williams 65.4 percent to 34.6 percent.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) endorsed Crank, while Trump backed Williams. Two Republican super PACs that have backed more mainstream candidates in other primaries this year spent $1.9 million to help Crank win.

Sheri Biggs, a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, edged out Mark Burns, a pastor who had Trump’s endorsem*nt, in the primary runoff for the seat held by Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan.

Today is a star-studded day on Capitol Hill.

Paris Hilton will testify before the Ways and Means Committee about strengthening child welfare and country star Randy Travis will testify before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet subcommittee on artist royalties from AM and FM radio. Talking Heads lead singer David Byrne met with senators last week about this issue.

The Supreme Court will hand down more rulings today. There are 10 more cases to be decided this term, including some of the court’s most politically salient cases. Those cases address topics like: Whether Trump is immune from prosecution for all acts during his presidency, whether the Biden administration violated the First Amendment in asking social media companies to take down posts and whether a federal law means emergency room doctors can perform abortions in states where abortions are restricted or banned.

U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon did not issue rulings on any of the motions in Trump’s classified documents case pretrial motions. Our colleagues Perry Stein and Devlin Barrett report that she seemed skeptical of the defense’s argument that “FBI agents offered false information to justify searching Mar-a-Lago” during an evidentiary hearing. She also seemed skeptical of the prosecution’s argument that Trump needed to be prevented from discussing agents involved in his case. Written rulings on both matters could be published any time in the coming days.

Biden “will pardon thousands of U.S. veterans who were convicted of having gay sex while serving in the military, administration officials said, an election-year move that could allow them to recover financial benefits that had been withheld by the government,” our colleague Dan Lamothe reports.

Join Leigh Ann in a Washington Post Live interview and screening about the persistent challenge of high-speed internet connectivity in pockets across America today at 4 p.m. Eastern.

A special screening of the new documentary “Every Last Mile: The Untold Story of Connecting Rural America” will be followed by a roundtable discussion with Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), Rural Utilities Service Administrator Andrew Berke and Virginia’s broadband office director Tamarah Holmes. Register to attend or watch here.

A majority of the voters considered most likely to determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential election trust Trump over Biden to handle threats to democracy, according to a poll from The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

The poll surveyed 3,513 voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Pollsters identified 2,255 “Deciders”: voters who participated in either the 2016 or 2020 election, are under the age of 25, have registered to vote since 2022, are undecided and may not even vote this cycle or changed their candidate support from 2016 to 2020, or some combination of these categories.

Despite those views, 38 percent say Trump is more trustworthy when it comes to handling threats to democracy, 9 percent more than those who trust Biden more on the subject.

Supporters of Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign are already preparing to contest the election if he loses to Biden once again.

Despite the lack of success of these efforts, voting rights advocates are concerned they can sow further distrust in elections or, in the worst case, delay the certification process and prevent the winner from taking office.

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