A very predictable disaster
Recapping the brutal hour of television that was the Trump-CNN Town Hall
Since it was announced back on May 1, the Cable News Network (CNN) had been heavily promoting the return of former President Donald Trump to its airwaves.
Not since the 2016 presidential campaign had Trump participated in an event aired solely on the Warner Bros. Discovery-owned network. But last night, Trump participated in a live town hall event in New Hampshire, moderated by CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins.
And it went about as poorly as you could have expected.
Trump, if you will recall, the front-runner for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, has been indicted by a New York Grand Jury, was found guilty by a jury of defamation and sexual abuse just on Tuesday, continues to claim the 2020 presidential election that he lost was rigged, and is currently under criminal investigations in the state of Georgia and by the Justice Department.
Got it?
Hopefully, you didn’t waste an hour of your evening tuning in last night. But even if you did, and still can’t quite comprehend what happened there, here’s a little recap to jog your memory.
Collins opened up the proceedings by claiming “no questions are off the table” and while she certainly did answer many questions Trump didn’t like, he tended not to answer them. Or in some (many) cases, completely misstate the truth.
That was evident from the first statement Trump made, when he said that the 2020 election was a “rigged election,” saying that “unless your a stupid person, you see what happens.”
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Of course, as any good journalist would, Collins had to interject with the facts and state that “it was not a rigged election, it was not a stolen election.” And when given the chance to say, nearly two-and-a-half years later, that he lost the 2020 election, Trump refused.
As Trump kept stating falsehoods that have been debunked numerous times, and with Collins continuing to attempt to fact-check him in real-time, it became quite clear very early this wasn’t going to go well.
So of course, Trump did what he typically does when he knows he’s not on the winning side, and resort to belittling, saying that Collins has “an agenda.”
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1656451796347305988?s=20
(But don’t worry, more on that later.)
When talking about the events that occurred on January 6, 2021, (you know, the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that was sparked by the rally the then-president held in D.C.) Trump referred to it as “a beautiful day.” I’d beg to disagree.
Trump then went on to claim that then-Vice President Mike Pence did “something wrong” when he didn’t help Trump overturn the results of the election, which he continued to claim was rigged. He also said that the Capitol police officer (who is black) who shot Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter who broke into the Capitol, was a “thug”, and when asked whether he would pardon those who have been charged with crimes in relation to January 6, said he intended to for many of them, while also not ruling out pardoning those from the far-right Proud Boys group.
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When moving on to the court case that found Trump liable of defaming and sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, Trump claimed he had never met her, calling her a “wack job,” then proceeded to tell a story of them meeting. All while garnering laughs from the audience of Republican voters, even as Trump then defended his comments from the infamous 2005 Access Hollywood tape where he bragged that stars could grab women by the pussy.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1656455585913503747?s=20
As the parade continued, Trump went on to endorse the U.S. defaulting on its debt, pushing the idea of arming school teachers with guns to prevent mass shootings, and hailing the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, falsely claiming that Democrats support murdering born babies.
Then on Ukraine, Trump said that if elected president, he would end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. I’ll let you guess how you think he would do that.
When asked if he wants Ukraine to win war, he answered, “I don’t think in terms of winning or losing.” Pretty rich from the man who once claimed “we’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning.”
And when I promised more of the childish charades, I wasn’t lying.
Talking about the issue of classified documents, and asked why he held on to many classified documents, he proceeded to call Collins “a nasty person” to the cheers of his most faithful supporters.
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1656465794526584833?s=20
Great standing up for your employees, CNN!
Trump then proceeded to deny he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that he asked him to find votes in the aftermath of the 2020 election. (Spoiler alert: He did! And it’s on tape!) And claimed that if the 2024 election is “honest” he would accept its results.
Whew.
Let’s just say it wasn’t the best night for journalism in America. Or for democracy in America.
It’s a shame that CNN and those running the network put on an event where they knew the outcome: a festival of all-too-predictable lies, insults, and tales of calling the former President “sir.” (With tears in their eyes!)
In a desperate bid for ratings as the network’s viewer counts continue to dwindle below its cable news rivals, CNN President Chris Licht and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav decided that they’d rather have a known pathological liar spread flagrant misinformation, ignore the fact checking that was presented feet away, and be wrapped up in applause from the supposed Republican-leaning voters of New Hampshire.
Licht and Zaslav clearly prefer the attention and ratings the network will have gotten from Wednesday night, instead of maintaining the integrity of its news division, who just hosted one of its main attackers on its airwaves.
They continued to mainstream the fabrications the 45th president can’t - and won’t - stop belching (a lesson that should have been learned from 2016) and ended up putting one of their journalists in the vulnerable spot of sharing the stage with someone who called her a “nasty person.” (And this after Trump has said of other female journalists that “there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever” and “was bleeding badly from a facelift.”)
Not to mention how the network gave a platform to a man who one day earlier was found guilty of sexual abuse and defamation, and then went on to continually defame the same woman.
Of course, what Wednesday’s event should show is how unqualified the psychotic nutcase known as Donald Trump is of becoming president again.
(Remember, there is an alternative, and they’re well aware of what went on last night.)
But all it really did was enable him and his base to spread even more baseless, damaging, inaccurate conspiracies to a wide audience that ultimately threaten the already fragile standing of American democracy.
It truly was a very predictable disaster.