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The Trump campaign is firing back after a spokesperson was shut down on CNN following a warning by the host to “respect” her colleagues.

CNN anchor Kasie Hunt abruptly cut off an interview with Trump National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday as she attempted to highlight the bias against the former president by CNN hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash who will be moderating the presidential debate between Trump and President Joe Biden.

“CNN cutting off my microphone for bringing up a debate moderator’s history of anti-Trump lies just proves our point that President Trump will not be treated fairly in Thursday’s debate,” Leavitt told Fox News Digital on Monday.

“Yet President Trump is still willing to go into this 3-1 fight to bring his winning message to the American people, and he will win,” she added.

(Video Credit: CNN)

The Trump campaign took to X after the segment to share some evidence to back up the concerns voiced by Leavitt: “Meet Fake Tapper. Just another Fake News hack with Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The exchange occurred during “CNN This Morning” as Leavitt brought up facts about Tapper and Bash.

She noted that Trump “is knowingly going into a hostile environment on this very network, on CNN, with debate moderators who have made their opinions about him very well known over the past eight years and their biased coverage of him.”

“So President Trump is willing to bring his message to every corner of this country to voters to ensure that he wins this election in November. He looks forward to doing that. And I know the American public look forward to hearing from him,” she added before Hunt stepped in to become the news.

“So I‘ll just say my colleagues, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, have acquitted themselves as professionals as they have covered campaigns and interviewed candidates from all sides of the aisle. I‘ll also say that if you talk to analysts of previous debates, that if you’re attacking the moderators, you’re usually losing,” Hunt said.

She then played clips of Trump’s comments, setting up her narrative and even offering her interpretation of what the presumptive GOP nominee was trying to convey.

“So he’s basically saying there, well, will I let Joe Biden win? It does seem as though many Republicans have set the bar very low in terms of arguing that Joe Biden is basically senile,” Hunt declared. “What do you expect from Joe Biden?”

But when Leavitt attempted to bring up her own examples of anti-Trump rhetoric, she was quickly shut down.

“Well, first of all, it’s it’s it takes about five minutes to Google Jake Tapper, Donald Trump to see that Jake Tapper has,” she began.

“Ma’am, we’re going to stop this interview if you’re going to keep attacking my colleagues,” Hunt told her. “Ma’am, I’m going to stop you if you continue to attack my colleagues. I would like to talk about Joe–”

Leavitt insisted that she was “stating facts” after Hunt continued, “and Donald Trump, who you work for– yes. If you are here to speak on his behalf I am willing to have this conversation.”

“I’m sorry, guys, we’re going to come back out to the panel,” Hunt said. “Karoline, thank you very much for your time. You are welcome to come back at any point. She is welcome to come back and speak about Donald Trump, and Donald Trump will have equal time to Joe Biden when they both join us later this week in Atlanta for this debate.”

She took to social media to make her point again.

Tapper and Bash are “well-respected veteran journalists who have covered politics for more than five decades combined,” a CNN spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Monday.

“They have extensive experience moderating major political debates, including CNN’s Republican Presidential Primary Debate this cycle. There are no two people better equipped to co-moderate a substantial and fact-based discussion and we look forward to the debate on June 27 in Atlanta,” the spokesperson said.

Leavitt responded to Hunt’s pushback with the same message referenced above:

Frieda Powers
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