Democrats and media watchers slammed CNN Wednesday night for the network’s combative, lie-filled town hall with former President Donald Trump.
Moderator Kaitlan Collins tried to contain Trump by maintaining his denial of the 2020 presidential election results, dismissing the lawsuit that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation against writer E. Jean Carroll, and defending his decision, as secret documents to be classified after his presidency to Florida.
But Collins has struggled to fact-check the former president in real time, and many slammed CNN for airing Trump at all. Eventually, Trump called Collins a “bad person” as she tried to get an answer to a question.
“Today’s disaster has to be a lesson every other news organization in the world needs to learn: DON’T NORMALIZE DONALD TRUMP,” said the Lincoln Project, a Republican group opposed to Trump. said in a statement. “CNN gave Trump 90 minutes of uninterrupted airtime to rewrite history and rewrite his own narrative.”
New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D) said the decision to give Trump a platform was “shameful” after his appearance and said his comments on Wednesday reflected the difficulty with which people bring allegations of sexual assault. Trump taunted Carroll as a “complete idiot” on Wednesday while a friendly audience laughed and applauded him.
“I think it was a deeply irresponsible decision,” Ocasio-Cortez said on MSNBC. “What we saw tonight was a series of extremely irresponsible decisions that put a sexual abuse victim at risk… in front of a nationwide audience, and I could not have disagreed more strongly.”
Michael Fanone, the former Washington, DC police officer who was assaulted on Jan. 6, 2021, told HuffPost he was horrified after City Hall.
“It’s worse than I could have ever imagined. “It’s an absolute disaster,” said Fanone. “There’s no real-time fact-checking on this guy. He’s a volcano of bullshit.”
Jonathan Swan, a reporter for the New York Times, reported Wednesday night that Trump’s advisers were “thrilled” with his performance at City Hall.
“You can’t believe he gets an hour on CNN with an audience cheering his every line and laughing at his every joke,” he said.