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Former President Donald Trump speaks at his campaign event at the DoubleTree Manchester Downtown on Thursday, April 27, 2023, in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Gabin Botsford | Washington Post | Getty Images
CNN still has a Donald Trump problem.
Under new CEO Chris Licht, the cable news network wants to reimagine itself as a no-nonsense, politically mediocre producer since Discovery’s merger with WarnerMedia last year.
Wednesday’s 70 Minutes Town Hall with Trump, moderated by anchor Caitlan Collins, was CNN’s first big opportunity since the change of ownership to showcase itself as the fact network. Licht told CNBC last year that the network wants to hear from both Democrats and Republicans, but won’t allow people to come and say it’s raining when it’s not.
Trump has a history of promoting election fraud lies – an example of saying it’s raining when it’s not. But instead of forcing the former president to stay within the confines of the truth, the city council set up a dynamic as Trump trumped Collins, who repeatedly tried to stop him from lying throughout the hour-or-plus event.
Collins gamely pointed out throughout the event as Trump veered into fantasyland. It might have been a journalistic success—if not for the fact that CNN inexplicably allowed a partisan audience to cheer on Trump’s constant commentary throughout the event. The boisterous crowd’s influence transformed the town hall from a potential investigative interview into an actual Trump rally, undermining Collins’ attempts to hold him accountable.
At one point, annoyed by Collins’ constant attempt to connect Trump with the truth, Trump called Collins a “bad guy”. The crowd cheered.
Collins spent the city council’s first 20 minutes debating his refusal to recant his election fraud claims, which have been consistently refuted by courts, election experts, and even several prominent Republicans. She responded to a question from an audience member who asked if Trump would “stop the polarizing talk about election fraud” while he runs for president.
Trump seemed bemused by the question.
“If I see election fraud, I think I have to say so,” Trump said. “But the answer is yes.”
Collins continued, “So are you going to comment, on his question, about the 2020 election on the campaign trail?”
Unanswered, Trump replied, “Well, I think we’re just going to win. We’re at a point now. We’ve come so close. Let’s win it again and straighten our country out.”
About 10 seconds later, he followed that up with, “The Constitution says we’re supposed to have legal, well-preserved, well-thought-out elections. And we didn’t have that.”
Collins interjected again that there was no evidence of election fraud. Trump responded by saying he knew she had an agenda but that “that was a horrible election” and “unless somebody was really stupid” before he slacked off and didn’t go through with the idea.
In other words, Trump said he would put the talk on rigging the 2020 election on hold and seconds later he spoke of rigging the 2020 election. Moreover, he brushed off Collins’ attempt to keep him within the bounds of reality that he had an agenda.
This is Trump’s problem in a nutshell. Direct validation of Trump in an interview is very difficult because he will wow most interviewers with a torrent of words.
CNN reaction
“Tonight, Caitlan Collins embodied what it means to be a world-class journalist,” CNN said in a statement. “I asked tough, fair, revealing questions. I followed President Trump and fact-checked him in real time to provide voters with critical information about his positions as he enters the 2024 election as the Republican frontrunner. That is CNN’s role and responsibility: to get answers and hold the powerful to account.”
Licht followed up Thursday morning with an internal letter to staff, saying he believes the event is “absolutely and unequivocally” a service to America.
“You don’t have to like the president’s answers, but you can’t say we didn’t get them,” Licht said, according to a transcript obtained by CNBC. “That’s our job – to get answers. We’ve held it accountable like no other news organization for years.”
But even CNN executives must have realized that Collins did not hold Trump accountable on Wednesday. Her attempts to keep him on the right track are admirable but amount to her father’s exhausted attempt and failure to stop her children from eating Halloween candy after trick-or-treating. Plus, CNN added crowds of hundreds cheering every time a child ate a piece of candy.
“While it may be uncomfortable to hear people applaud in response to some of the president’s answers, this audience represents the views of a large segment of America,” Licht said. “The mistake the media has made in the past is to ignore their existence.”
The town hall succeeded as an event in that it allowed the CNN audience to see Donald Trump again Leading polls as the Republican front-runner to win the nomination in 2024. Viewers can now make up their minds about what they saw.
Discovery Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav told CNBC last week why CNN allowed Trump to participate in the city council despite his history of election fraud.
“For us, the focus is let’s get the message right, let’s get the brand right, let’s get the balance right,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “There are a number of advocacy networks out there. Our focus is on being a network of facts, the best version of facts, and, as Carl Bernstein said, great journalism, and not just politics, but when we do politics, we need to represent both sides.”
From an event planning perspective, the town hall setting did not allow for the best version of the facts to be presented. This may be an olive branch for Trump supporters, but it’s not the best journalism.
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