Renowned journalists Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, two of the most popular faces of the CNN network, are in charge of moderating the first and transcendental Thursday presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump before the November 5 elections.
Four years ago, both journalists were very critical of the forms and chaos of the first debate of 2020, in which there were constant shouts and interruptions from Trump against Biden, who lost patience and responded: “Will you shut up, man?”.
In a program immediately afterwards to comment on what happened, Tapper, one of the channel’s star presenters, lamented that the face-to-face was “awful” and “It was not a debate, but a disaster because of President Trump, who was interrupting, breaking the rules and lying the whole time.”.
Bash, a commentator on the same space and veteran parliamentary journalist, went further and called it “chaos”.
Four years later, both journalists face the difficult challenge of moderating a new debate between Biden and Trump, in which they will have to enforce the rules without becoming the protagonists of the day, but who are they? Jake Tapper and Dana Bash?
Tapper, star CNN anchor
Born in 1969 in New York, Tapper is the chief Washington correspondent and one of CNN’s star anchors, having joined the network in 2013 after working for ABC News.
She won several awards for her reporting on the 2016 election that brought Trump to the presidency and has moderated several television debates, including one in the 2016 Republican primaries and the final debate of the 2020 Democratic primaries between Biden and Bernie Sanders.
In his programs he has interviewed leaders such as Biden himself, Boris Johnson (United Kingdom), Emmanuel Macron (France), Olaf Scholz (Germany), Justin Trudeau (Canada) and Volodymyr Zelensky (Ukraine).
Tapper holds an annual auction to build homes for American veterans severely injured in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, conflicts he himself covered as a reporter.
Bash, specialist in Congress and debates
Dana Bash, also originally from New York, where she was born in 1971, is one of CNN’s most prominent political reporters and co-hosts a Sunday show with Tapper.
For several years she was the network’s chief congressional correspondent, breaking several exclusives, and also covered several midterm elections, following both Democratic and Republican campaigns.
Election debates are not new to Bash, who moderated six of the 2016 Republican primary debates and two Democratic debates in 2020. Both Bash and Tapper also moderated the first Republican primary debate this year, although Trump he refused to participate.
Targeted by Trump
The former Republican president did agree to be on CNN’s face-to-face this Thursday despite the fact that he usually attacks this network, which he constantly accuses of spreading “fake news” for dismantling their hoaxes.
The moderators will have to deal with a defiant Trump, who has been heating up the atmosphere before the debate for days by saying that there will not be a fair fight because he will have to face three opponents, referring to Biden and the two journalists.
CNN itself interrupted an interview on Monday with Karoline Leavitt, the Republican’s press assistant, after she assured that Trump will face a “hostile environment” with two moderators who “a biased coverage of it”.
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Source: Gestion
Ricardo is a renowned author and journalist, known for his exceptional writing on top-news stories. He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he is known for his ability to deliver breaking news and insightful analysis on the most pressing issues of the day.
