While it was obvious to all that President Biden’s debate performance Thursday night was an unmitigated disaster that had Democrats scrambling behind the scenes for a new candidate, it wasn’t for CNN’s lack of skewing the debate questions in Biden’s favor. According to a NewsBusters analysis of the questions, there were 11 from the left, seven neutral questions, and only three from the right.
Surprisingly, moderator Jake Tapper launched out of the gate with one of the right-leaning questions:
Let's start with the issue that voters consistently say is their top concern: the economy. President Biden inflation has slowed, but prices remain high. Since you took office, the price of essentials has increased. For example, a basket of groceries that cost $100 then, now costs more than $120. And typical home prices have jumped more than 30 percent. What do you say to voters who feel they are worse off under your presidency than they were under President Trump?
The next right-leaning question didn’t occur for another 15 minutes. For that one, Dana Bash pointed out that a handful of states and no restrictions on abortion and asked Biden if he supported any limit at all. “Seven states have no legal restrictions on how far into a pregnancy a woman can obtain an abortion. Do you support any legal limits on how late a woman should be able to terminate a pregnancy?” she wondered.
Tapper had the third and final question from the right (also for Biden), this one about illegal immigration and crime:
President Biden, a record number of migrants have illegally crossed the southern border on your watch, overwhelming border states and overburdening cities such as New York and Chicago, and in some cases causing real safety and security concerns. Given that, why should voters trust you to solve this crisis?
Former President Trump did not receive any of the right-leaning questions.
NewsBusters counted both age-related questions to the candidates as neutral since poll after poll shows the American people were unhappy and concerned with the candidates’ ages.
Also included in the neutral questions were those about what the candidates planned to do about the opioid crisis, something neither candidate seemed prepared to answer. The moderators’ repeated requests for an answer were not counted as questions because they were just asking the candidates to respond to the original one.
The same standard was applied to the other instances of that occurring.
In addition to questions pushing the liberal policy agenda like climate change and abortion, three of the questions from the left were questions about January 6, accepting the results of the election, or suggesting Trump and his supporters were a threat to democracy. Here’s an example of Tapper teeing up Biden to attack Trump’s supporters:
President Biden, you have said, quote, “Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy.” Do you believe that the tens of millions of Americans who are likely to vote for President Trump will be voting against American democracy?
The final question of the debate was Bash pressing Trump on if he’d accept the results of the election.
