Trump’s CNN town hall was a mess of lies – and it was utterly predictable

theguardian.com/media/2023/may/10/donald-trump-cnn-town-hall-media-analysis

May 11, 2023

Analysis

Adam Gabbatt in New York

Neither CNN nor its host was able to take control as the ex-president played steamroller, to the audience’s delight

It began and ended in a way that absolutely everyone could have predicted.

Appearing at a CNN town hall, Donald Trump immediately launched into a series of debunked, nonsense claims about election fraud, speaking nearly non-stop for more than five minutes.

Trump steamrolled over attempted interruptions from Kaitlan Collins, the CNN interviewer, as the town hall immediately turned into what many had feared: an opportunity for Trump to lie about dozens of topics, almost completely unfettered, across 60 minutes of primetime television.

From 8pm to just after 9pm, there was never a moment when CNN or Collins had any semblance of control. Trump lied about election fraud and about the January 6 insurrection. He obfuscated on trade tariffs and the aims of abortion advocates, and claimed, wrongly, that he had “finished” the wall.

At one particularly revolting point, Trump mocked E Jean Carroll, the columnist whom a New York jury found he sexually assaulted in a department store.

Trump repeats conspiracy theories and election lies in CNN town hall

“CNN should be ashamed of themselves,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman, tweeted 20 minutes into the debacle.

“They have lost total control of this ‘town hall’ to again be manipulated into platforming election disinformation, defenses of Jan 6th, and a public attack on a sexual abuse victim.

“The audience is cheering him on and laughing at the host.”

According to CNN, the audience in Manchester, New Hampshire, was made up of “New Hampshire Republicans and undeclared voters”, but in reality the crowd might as well have been scooped up from a Trump campaign rally.

They laughed, whooped and applauded as Trump dished out a stream of his greatest hits.

Whoever had vetted the crowd must have winced as a series of people – almost all white, mostly male – stood up to lob softball questions at the former president about immigration, the economy, about how “state governments and the federal government are going to act to repress gun rights” and whether he would pardon the hundreds of people convicted of crimes on January 6.

Thrust by CNN into Trump’s signature cascade of nonsense, Collins was repeatedly overrun.

In the face of so many lies, it seemed difficult for Collins to know which one to factcheck, and Trump was allowed to present his alternative version of the universe, including on the aims of people attempting to protect a woman’s right to abortion.

“‘You could kill the baby at 9 months or after it was born,’” Clara Jeffery, the editor of Mother Jones magazine, tweeted, quoting a false claim by Trump that Democrats wanted abortion to be legal up until, and apparently after, birth.

“Goes unchallenged. This [is] a journalistic abomination.”

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“Goes unchallenged. This [is] a journalistic abomination.”

The decision to give a platform to Trump, a man who has something of a track record for lying, was widely criticized before the event. Angelo Carusone, chief executive of Media Matters for America, a progressive watchdog, described the town hall as a “transparent attempt to goose their ratings”, while Keith Olbermann, a former MSNBC host, criticized Chris Licht, who took over from Jeff Zucker as chief executive of CNN in 2022.

“I think we can say Chris Licht’s conversion of CNN into a political and journalistic whorehouse is complete,” Olbermann had said.

The looming town hall had led to an incongruous viewing experience throughout Wednesday, particularly in light of a legal finding that Trump sexually abused Carroll in 1996.

On Wednesday morning, Carroll, who the New York jury found was sexually abused in a New York department store changing room 27 years ago, was interviewed by CNN.

The network aired clips of the interview throughout the day, with a chyron hovering over the footage promoting Trump’s town hall appearance.

On Tuesday, CNN had run a story about Liz Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman and critic of Trump.

“New Liz Cheney ad: Trump ‘Aarisk America can never take again,’” read the CNN chyron. Right there, on the corner of the screen, was a promotion for the Trump town hall.

There had been clues, too, about the direction of the town hall in the hour before it began. In handing airtime to Trump, CNN apparently felt it had to host some of the former president’s acolytes, perhaps in the interest of balance.

That led to Wolf Blitzer, a CNN veteran, bringing on JD Vance, a Republican senator from Ohio who has dabbled in the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory.

Asked what Trump needed to do to win undecided voters, Vance said, with a straight face: “Trump has the ability to appeal across the aisles.”

CNN

>>18828260

Blitzer then turned the discussion to Trump having been found to have sexually abused Carroll. It gave Vance an on-air opportunity to attack the case as a “he said-she said situation” that has “nothing to do with the future of this country”.

Trump town hall live: ex-president repeats election lies and denies sexual abuse verdict to mostly Republican crowd – as it happened

“So ahead of Trump’s appearance on CNN, we get to watch JD Vance – a man who has pushed conspiracy theories and the white supremacist ‘Great Replacement’ – come on live and do a friendly, pre-game chat,” said Mehdi Hasan, who hosts a show on MSNBC.

“The normalization of extremism and conspiracism continues.”

As the town hall dwindled to a close on Wednesday, things didn’t get any better. At one point, Trump called Collins a “nasty woman” as she attempted to ask Trump a question. The audience laughed.

Trump also referenced New York’s Chinatown – “where they don’t even speak English” – and brought up “impeachment hoax No 1”, to cheers from the crowd.

Behind the scenes, CNN staff were apparently horrified. Justin Baragona, a media reporter for the Daily Beast, tweeted: “Immediate reaction from a CNN on-air personality to me just now on this Trump town hall: ‘It is so bad. I was cautiously optimistic despite the criticism. It is awful. It’s a Trump infomercial. We’re going to get crushed.’”

When the town hall ended and the camera cut to the CNN studio, the panel of pundits seemed dumbstruck.

“We don’t have enough time to factcheck every lie he told,” said Jake Tapper, a senior CNN host.

“I want to be very clear: what we saw tonight was outrageous,” said Laura Coates, a legal analyst.

The CNN correspondent Jamie Gangel might have put it best.

“People are appalled by what they saw tonight,” she said.

It was hard to disagree.

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Trump Was Awful. CNN Was Worse.

newrepublic.com/article/172655/trump-awful-cnn-licht-worse

May 10, 2023

Michael Tomasky/

May 10, 2023

Cable News Kills

Kaitlan Collins and the network’s journalists tried their best. But the execs, from Chris Licht on down, brought total shame on themselves, journalism, and America.

Here’s what Chris Licht said the day he took over at CNN: “Sadly, too many people have lost trust in the news media. I think we can be a beacon in regaining that trust by being an organization that exemplifies the best characteristics in journalism: fearlessly speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo, questioning ‘group-think’, and educating viewers and readers with straightforward facts and insightful commentary, while always being respectful of differing viewpoints.

First and foremost, we should, and we will be advocates for truth.”

Well, I hope today some of his more alert employees are reminding him of those noble words because the Donald Trump “town hall” was an absolute fiasco for journalism and democracy; quite plainly the worst non-Fox night of cable news in recent memory. This was a grotesque scramble for ratings and cash, a naked bid by CNN to get some of that flagging post-Tucker Fox News audience that’s out there up for grabs. “Newsmax?!

OANN?! Who are these pipsqueaks,” Licht obviously sits around his office wondering as he conceives of some way for mighty CNN to get a slice of that juicy pie.

People make mistakes and miscalculations in this world, all the time. But this isn’t one of those times. Licht and CNN knew precisely what they were doing. Cable news critics started to see signs of CNN’s rightward shift last fall

—the departures of John Harwood and Brian Stelter serving as a distant early warning. Licht was reportedly behind the canning of Harwood, a terrific journalist with years of experience at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Harwood was no liberal polemicist. He was a reality-based journalist. That he couldn’t pass muster with Licht should have been, and was a tip-off. Licht went on a “listening tour,” promising advertisers that his CNN would hear both sides. And it was well after January 6 that Licht had this brainstorm.

This town hall, then, was no miscalculation. CNN execs did not err by filling that audience with a bunch of MAGA shills who tittered at the idea of the former president committing an act of sexual abuse. They knew exactly what they were doing. As Warner Brothers/Discover CEO David Zaslav, who’s no less responsible for this disaster than Licht, said last week, they want those disaffected Fox viewers who question that network’s total commitment to Trump, the sort who were up in arms when Fox called Arizona (prematurely but correctly) for Joe Biden: “We’re happy he’s coming on there…This is a new CNN. I’m proud of CNN, we’re on a great journey and this country needs it.”

Some of CNN’s journalists did the best they could. Kaitlan Collins made a heroic effort to keep up with Trump’s firehose of deceit and treachery. When CNN cut away from the town hall

—and to my real-time eye, it looks like CNN ended it 20 minutes early; it was scheduled to last until 9:30 and CNN instead tossed to the studio talking heads at 9:10

—anchors Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper were quick to note that Trump opened the night by lying about the 2020 election, and they and others like John King and Jamie Gangel, and Laura Coates tried to fact-check and rebut Trump.

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So, good for them. But it was largely too late. Licht got his licks in. America saw a barrage of lies that rained down like bombs on Dresden. I started out trying to keep track of them, but as is usually the case with Trump, you’ll have a far easier job of it keeping track of the true things he says, because that’s a breeze. (The true statements, after “my name is Donald Trump,” were roughly zero.)

He lied about 2020. He lied about January 6. He lied about E. Jean Carroll. He lied about abortion. He lied about his classified documents. He lied about energy independence

—the United States did achieve “energy independence” during his presidency, but as these things are measured, it’s energy independent today

—more so under Biden than under him! That’s a comparatively small lie, but it proves the point. He lied about everything. He can’t do anything other than lie. Lying is how he has lived for decades.

Were there any redeeming qualities in the exercise? We did get a bit of insight into his planned attack lines. On the classified documents: Joe Biden took 1,800 boxes. I don’t know if this is true off the top of my head, but it’s plausible

—vice presidents accumulate a lot of boxes. Then he said

—four times!—that Biden took boxes to “Chinatown.” What on earth does this mean?

Ex-vice president Biden stored some boxes in Washington DC’s Chinatown neighborhood. Oh my God, Chinatown! A neighborhood crawling with…Chinese…stuff!

(Though to be honest, Washington’s present-day Chinatown is a pale version of its heyday.) What a racist buffoon, playing to other racist buffoons.

Trump was awful at this town hall. But CNN was worse. Not its journalists

—they tried. Rather, it was the network’s ostensible leadership who failed to demonstrate that they are responsible stewards of the public trust. Though whoever made the decision to pull the plug on this vomit 20 minutes early perhaps should be in line for a promotion, if only because they brought this embarrassing night for CNN, journalism, and America to a halt. And yet somewhere, Licht and Zaslav are probably smiling.

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CNN Showcases Trump. He Brutalizes One of Its Stars—and the Truth.

thenation.com/article/politics/cnn-trump-town-hall

May 11, 2023

Despite her best efforts, moderator Kaitlan Collins could not “fact-check a lie machine,” in one CNN star’s words. It was a predictable shit show.

By Joan WalshTwitter

Today 10:47 pm

Trump supporters rally to welcome him at Manchester airport in Manchester, N.H., on May 10, ahead of his CNN town hall. (Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images)

“That’s not true, Mr. President, and you know that.”—CNN Donald Trump town hall moderator Kaitlan Collins.

“You are a nasty person.”—Trump to Collins, later.

It was worse than my worst nightmares.

CNN made a terrible, ratings-driven decision to host a New Hampshire town hall with disgraced former president Donald Trump Wednesday night—one day, as it happened, after he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation. Even worse: choosing to do it in front of an audience of New Hampshire Republicans.

I have to assume that was a Trump condition for doing the event. If it wasn’t, everyone connected with that decision should be fired. But almost certainly won’t be.

Trump got a standing f’ing ovation when he came out, as well as at the end of the nightmarish political stunt. The town hall’s moderator, CNN’s 31-year-old rising star Kaitlan Collins, tried repeatedly to push back on Trump’s many, many lies, but he talked over and mocked her for all 60-something minutes. The Trump-besotted crowd regularly served as a laugh track for Trump’s lies and his insults. It was nauseating.

Collins was best on Trump’s voter fraud lies.

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Collins was best on Trump’s voter fraud lies.

“Mr. President, there weren’t any fraudulent votes in Wisconsin,” she said at one point, as he tried to drown her out. Later: “There was no rigged election in the state of Georgia.” “The election was not rigged, Mr. President, you cannot be saying this all night long,” Collins insisted.

But he did.

Unforgivably, though, Collins allowed Trump to repeatedly claim, on abortion, that Democrats are in favor of abortion even after babies are born, “ripped out of the womb,” and stuck doggedly to her comparatively procedural questions about at which week of pregnancy he would support an abortion ban. She also clung to a relatively bloodless line of questioning about his deadly, racist immigration policies, merely hammering away (accurately) that he only constructed 52 feet of his border wall. In response, he lied more. There was nothing she could do.

Dressed intentionally or not in suffragist white, Collins became just another woman (verbally) assaulted by Trump. Great job, CNN CEO Chris Licht. Women across America salute you.

Although it was a bloodbath for CNN management, the grotesque spectacle provides thousands of clips for Democratic ads. Trump said he was “honored” to be “able to terminate Roe vs. Wade” (that’s not technically what happened, but whatever). He said he was “inclined to pardon many” of the violent January 6 rioters, saying “many of them are great people” (just like the Charlottesville, Va., neo-Nazis). He called the Capitol Police officer who shot insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt, as she climbed through a window to assault House of Representative members, a “thug” (yes, the officer is Black).

On Wednesday, some Trump advisors were hand-wringing that he was “walking into a complete ambush,” given the verdict in E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit. But Trump’s people almost certainly negotiated the audience composition, and so no ambush occurred.

The CNN lead-in to the town hall featured a diverse panel of three Republicans—Hogan Gidley, former short-term Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, and (anti-Trump) GOP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson—plus Democrat Karen Finney. It was a disgrace. I have to admit, the panel that gathered after the embarrassment, along with anchors Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper, seemed mostly horrified by what they saw. Like the rest of us.

But on that same panel, the network also let one of Trump’s few Black congressional supporters, Byron Donalds, throw verbal punches at Collins. Cooper tried to fact-check Donalds too, but Donalds has learned from The Donald to talk over everyone, and it mostly worked.

Once again, Trump took the opportunity to defame E. Jean Carroll, who just won the defamation suit against him. He said again that he doesn’t know who she is, yet he volunteered “her dog, or her cat, was named Vagina” (digression: Trump has never had any kind of pet). The crowd cheered his mockery of Carroll. I kept wondering, as I did earlier: Can Carroll sue CNN for defamation? Fox settled a defamation suit with Dominion Voting Systems, after it was proven it showcased Trump acolytes it knew were lying; CNN did the same.

I don’t think CNN’s bad decision here was at the same level of awful as Fox’s repeated support for Trump’s election fraud lies, after Joe Biden was declared the president-elect and ever since. But it was pretty awful. The network defended it by saying he’s currently the GOP front-runner. We’ll all have to grapple with that fact, in terms of our Trump coverage, in the year to come.

But CNN led the way in normalizing the twice-impeached, once-indicted, civilly found liable for sexual assault and defamation, coup-fomenting former president. Let’s watch what happens next.

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The CNN Town Hall With Former President Trump Is a Chaotic Event

adweek.com/tvnewser/the-cnn-town-hall-with-former-president-trump-is-a-chaotic-event/530392

A.J. Katzon May. 10, 2023 - 10:32 PM

CNN’s Republican Presidential Town Hall with Donald Trump was an intense event. The former president took questions from CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins and a live audience of New Hampshire Republican and undeclared voters on Wednesday evening.

To be frank, a lot it was difficult to watch. Collins took one for the team and tried her best to correct the record as often she could. Focusing the candidate’s attention on the subject of the moment was a tough task.

Perhaps that’s why what was scheduled to be a 90-minute broadcast instead ended at around 9:15 p.m. ET. It was getting too much.

The former commander in chief again refused to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election, instead repeating false claims that the election was somehow rigged against him.

Collins pressed him, asking directly if he would publicly acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election. Collins pointed out that the election wasn’t rigged, and pointed to statements by Trump’s own election officials noting the election was conducted fairly.

Didn’t matter.

“They found millions of votes on camera, on government cameras, where they were stuffing ballot boxes. So with all of that, I think it’s a shame what happened. I think it’s a very sad thing for our country. I think it’s a very sad thing, frankly, for the world, because if you look at what’s gotten to our country, our country has gone to hell,” Trump said, continuing on to criticize the Biden administration.

In one of the more depressing portions of the town hall, Trump said he does not think a recent verdict in which a Manhattan federal jury found that he was liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the spring of 1996 disqualifies him from being president or will have an impact on women voters.

The federal jury awarded Carroll $5 million for battery and defamation.

“A Manhattan jury found you sexually abused writer E. Jean You’ve denied this. But what do you say to voters who say it disqualifies you from being president?” asked Collins.

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>>18828300

Trump answered that he didn’t think there were many voters who would think that. He bizarrely claimed that the case was made up and that the whole ordeal was politically motivated. He repeated that he did not know Carroll, but said that he took a photo “years ago” with her and her husband.

“This woman, I don’t know her. I never met her. I have no idea who she is,” Trump said.

When asked if the jury’s decision would deter women from voting for him, the former president said, “No, I don’t think so.”

Trump later justified comments he made on Access Hollywood tape about how famous people could grab women by the p***y, and said he won’t take those comments back.

The tape came up in Trump’s tape deposition as part of the civil case with Carroll.

“I said women let you, I didn’t say you grab… I said women let — you know, you didn’t use that word — but if you look, women let you,” Trump said. “Now, they said will you take that back? I said, look, for a million years this is the way it’s been. I want to be honest this is the way it’s been,” he added.

“You would like me to take that back. I can’t take it back because it happens to be true,” Trump added.

Staying on the theme of Trump’s “complicated” relationship with the opposite sex, he at one point lost it on the CNN moderator during an exchange about the classified documents case, calling her a “NASTY person!”

Trump: All of a sudden, they raided my house. They didn’t raid the house of Joe Biden. They didn’t raid Obama.

Collins: Joe Biden didn’t ignore a subpoena to get those documents back like you did (crosstalk) But that’s the question that investigators have, I think, is why you held on to those documents when you knew the federal government was seeking them and then had given you a subpoena to return them.

Trump: Are you ready? Are you ready? Can I talk?

Collins: Yeah. What’s the answer?

Trump: Can, do you mind?

Collins: I would like for you to answer the question

Trump: It’s very simple to answer.

Collins: That’s why I asked it.

Trump: It’s very simple to… You’re a nasty person! I’ll tell you.

The audience then proceeded to laugh and applaud.

Collins: Can you answer why? Why you held on to the documents?

“You’re so wrong you don’t know the subject!” Trump yelled at Collins moments later. “I do know the subject,” Collins replied.

Later in the town hall, Trump also didn’t say whether he wants Russia or Ukraine to win their war.

“I don’t think in terms of winning and losing. I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people,” he said.

When asked by Collins for a second time whether or not the former president wants Ukraine to win, Trump still would not answer directly, instead saying that he wants “everybody to stop dying.”

“Russians and Ukrainians, I want them to stop dying,” he said, going so far as to add, “And I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”

Trump allies seemed satisfied with how the event went. Other industry figures, however, including Collins’ CNN colleague Jake Tapper, didn’t enjoy the experience quite as much. Tapper didn’t criticize his employer, instead criticizing the candidate and defended his colleague:

Jake Tapper sums up Trump’s town hall: “He called a black law enforcement officer a thug. He said people here in Washington, D.C. and Chinatown don’t speak English. He attacked Kaitlan as a nasty woman… he made fun of [Carrol’s] sexual assault and many in the audience laughed.” pic.twitter.com/NSzVzVEApP

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 11, 2023

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>>18828283

>why post such opinionated garbage

Tears.

Liberal Tears.

>>18828368

>>18828450

Mother's Day/Date (2023)

Sun, May 14, 2023

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/05/11/full-replay-cnn-broadcasts-trump-townhall-the-culmination-of-their-seven-year-effort-to-destroy-president-trump-cnn-leaves-in-tears/

Full Replay, CNN Broadcasts Trump Townhall, The Culmination of Their Seven-Year Effort to Destroy President Trump, CNN Leaves in Tears

theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/05/11/full-replay-cnn-broadcasts-trump-townhall-the-culmination-of-their-seven-year-effort-to-destroy-president-trump-cnn-leaves-in-tears

May 11, 2023

A background is really worth considering. For a full year in 2016 CNN attacked candidate Donald Trump relentlessly, calling him every name in the book and comparing him to the rise of Hitler. Trump won. CNN then spent the next four years of the Trump presidency shouting at him, yelling at him, calling him names and decrying him as evil incarnate attempting to destroy him; including the promotion of the totally fraudulent Trump-Russia conspiracy theory, which they have never apologized for pushing. CNN then spends the next two years hiding every Biden scandal they can cover and defending the Biden team as the nation burns down around them.

Enter 2023… Hilariously, CNN never learned anything from the previous seven years, asks Donald Trump to come back and sends Kaitlin Collins onto the stage with instructions to be rude, combative, argumentative, snide and nasty. What happens… Trump fearlessly destroys the effort, and the audience is well entertained.

Here’s the full CNN Townhall event replay. {Direct Rumble Link} CNN cried mercy and cut the Townhall short by 20 minutes, it was scheduled for 90 – they conceded defeat at 70 minutes and ended the broadcast. The leftists then went into full meltdown pearl clutching in panel reviews everywhere, while the Ron DeSantis team had apoplectic fits of sad. WATCH:

COMMERCIAL FREE REPLAY: President Trump's CNN Townhall | 05-10-2023

.

President Donald Trump when asked what the first thing he would do to bring down rising costs: “Drill baby, Drill.”

pic.twitter.com/gcbpshrAXA

— Bella Smith (@BelllllaSmith) May 11, 2023

I’m told this is real… it seems real and it’s surprisingly honest and accurate for CNN… but who knows these days. #cnn pic.twitter.com/J0YCuX13Od

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 11, 2023

This was the best answer on the war in Ukraine. Home run pic.twitter.com/vJnE8xpiOz

— MAGS (@TAftermath2020) May 11, 2023

“We have to save this country because our country is dying. Our country is being destroyed by stupid people.” pic.twitter.com/mhP9XKeCIz

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) May 11, 2023

Donald Trump takes out receipts LIVE on CNN “Let me pull it out” pic.twitter.com/M20xVmXAst

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) May 11, 2023

COMEDY GOLD pic.twitter.com/Nvj4gdOCiS

— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) May 11, 2023

Trump Vibing With The Crowd After CNN Town Hall pic.twitter.com/Yf5IbTaqT8

— The Columbia Bugle (@ColumbiaBugle) May 11, 2023

This is hilarious.

CNN attempts to open their Trump Town Hall focus group with a gotcha question and their talking head instantly gets owned! pic.twitter.com/N0wu8KhHjE

— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) May 11, 2023

The American people aren't speaking about the 2020 election, a liable case after 25+ years, or January 6th.

They are talking about the price of gas/groceries, fentanyl killing Americans 18-45, crime in the streets, & the fear of WWIII.

CNN's top issues aren't America's. pic.twitter.com/jk4QlHO7L5

— Byron Donalds (@ByronDonalds) May 11, 2023

The CNN Town Hall in a nutshell. pic.twitter.com/onrwsbAOeR

— MAGS (@TAftermath2020) May 11, 2023

https://twitter.com/ACTBrigitte/status/1656491141020147712

This is hilarious.

CNN attempts to open their Trump Town Hall focus group with a gotcha question and their talking head instantly gets owned!

10:47 PM · May 10, 2023

·

190.9K Views

>>18828837

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-cnn-town-hall-network-insiders-disgrace-1234733328/

‘F–king Disgrace’: CNN Gifts Trump Primetime Campaign Rally

rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-cnn-town-hall-network-insiders-disgrace-1234733328

May 11, 2023

'Appalling'

Network insiders who spoke to Rolling Stone were distraught that the former president had free rein to “spew lies” during the ill-advised town hall

CNN invited Donald Trump to lie on its airwaves for over an hour on Wednesday night. The evening was billed as a town hall, but played more like a campaign rally for the former president, who steamrolled and repeatedly mocked moderator Kaitlin Collins, pushing a torrent of misinformation about the 2020 election, the multiple investigations into his conduct, and pretty much everything else he commented on.

One CNN insider who spoke to Rolling Stone called the evening “appalling,” lamenting that the network gave Trump “a huge platform to spew his lies.”

Collins tried her best to correct Trump as he spoke. And immediately after Trump went off-air, CNN anchor Jake Tapper led a parade of pundits and fact-checkers to counter his dissembling and pan his performance.

Jake Tapper sums up Trump's town hall: "He called a black law enforcement officer a thug. He said people here in Washington, D.C. and Chinatown don’t speak English. He attacked Kaitlan as a nasty woman… he made fun of [Carrol's] sexual assault and many in the audience laughed." pic.twitter.com/NSzVzVEApP

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) May 11, 2023

Nevertheless, the town hall was “a fucking disgrace,” in the words of another network insider. “1000 percent a mistake [to host Trump]. No one [at CNN] is happy.”

“Just brutal,” added one of the network’s primetime producers.

A CNN spokesperson defended the network’s decision to host Trump — and Collins, the host who tried to stop his steamroller of lies. Collins “exemplified what it means to be a world-class journalist. She asked tough, fair and revealing questions. And she followed up and fact-checked President Trump in real time to arm voters with crucial information about his positions as he enters the 2024 election as the Republican frontrunner,” the spokesperson said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “That is CNN’s role and responsibility: to get answers and hold the powerful to account.”

>>18828887

But Team Trump didn’t seem to feel that the boss wasn’t held to much of anything. Even before the conclusion of the town hall’s first hour, the reactions within Trump’s circle were universally joyous. Some close aides to the ex-president were almost baffled that the night went that well for them, according to sources in and close to the campaign. “We want to thank CNN for their generous donation to President Trump’s campaign!” one Trump adviser said late on Wednesday.

“[Trump] should literally do this every night,” one operative working closely with the Trump 2024 team said about an hour into the live event. “Nightly CNN hits!”

For Trump’s political lieutenants, the evening served as a dose of vindication of his and his staff’s plans to heavily saturate the kinds of major media outlets that GOP rivals like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have largely avoided, people familiar with the plans say. “Part of the idea is to bury Ron [in the media], and to laugh at him for being so weak that he can’t even stand up to CNN,” another person close to Trump says. “To just completely swamp him.”

The strategy is similar to Trump’s past tactics — which long predate his presidency — of flooding the press and the tabloids with so much of his presence, even (and perhaps especially) in times of scandal or crisis.

“Control the agenda,” as sources with direct knowledge of Trump’s past directive put it.

Trump himself was certainly energized by the audience in New Hampshire, which CNN filled with his supporters. During one exchange in which Collins tried, and failed, to get him to take a side in the war in Ukraine — or at least to condemn Vladimir Putin — the crowd applauded his deflections. Collins ultimately moved on after the former president refused to give straight answers to any of her questions, instead pushing his well-worn talking points about the conflict.

“The audience was stacked with his voters,” lamented the same CNN insider who called the evening “appalling.”

The tone was set early, with Trump lying about the 2020 election results, and then simply lying some more when Collins tried to push back. When Collins asked Trump if he had any regrets about Jan. 6, 2021, Trump continued to spout election falsehoods and boasted about his crowd size. “A lot of the people here probably were there,” he said. “It was a beautiful day.”

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The town hall event took place just a day after Trump was found liable for sexual battery and defamation in a civil case brought by author E. Jean Carroll. Trump attacked Carroll and mocked the allegation to Collins on Wednesday. “I have no idea who the hell she is,” Trump said. The audience burst out in laughter.

Carroll wasn’t the only woman Trump bashed. He took aim at Collins throughout the town hall, accusing her of having an “agenda” and talking over her throughout the event. “You are a nasty person, I’ll tell you,” Trump said as Collins was trying to get him to respond to a question about why he kept classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Again, the audience burst out in laughter.

“I thought she was great. Unflappable,” a CNN insider told Rolling Stone of Collins’ performance.

BREAKING: Biden Admin Restores Trump Era Border Policy At The Last Minute As Title 42 Expires

trendingpoliticsnews.com/breaking-biden-admin-restores-trump-era-policy-at-the-last-minute-as-title-42-expires-mace

By ChrisMay 10, 2023

According to internal documents obtained by CBS News, the Biden administration has finalized a sweeping restriction on asylum that it plans to use to increase swift deportations of migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border after the Title 42 pandemic-era emergency policy expires on Thursday.

The regulation was published on Wednesday, less than 48 hours before Title 42’s expiration, and hundreds of U.S. asylum officers were trained on how to enforce it on Tuesday. CBS News first reported on the regulation’s finalization on Tuesday, along with the guidance given to asylum officers who will be implementing it.

BREAKING: Biden breaks campaign promise, restores Trump immigration policy just one day before Title 42 expires as migrants prepare to storm the southern border.

"The Biden administration has finalized a sweeping restriction on asylum that it plans to use to ramp up swift… pic.twitter.com/YMay9swAmw

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) May 10, 2023

The regulation, which is anticipated to be contested in federal court, represents the administration reverting back to a Trump-era border policy. It disqualifies migrants from U.S. protection if they do not request refugee status in another country, such as Mexico, while traveling to the southern border.

This shift has recently accelerated due to historically high levels of migrant arrivals, which have further strained an already overloaded asylum system, overwhelmed border communities, and become a political liability for Biden ahead of his 2024 campaign.

To curb the spread of Covid-19 in the early days of the pandemic, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a public health order. This order, commonly known as Title 42 because of the corresponding section in US law, authorized officials to expel migrants at US land borders without delay.

Individuals encountered under Title 42 were either sent back to their home countries or returned to Mexico. According to data from US Customs and Border Protection, this policy has resulted in the expulsion of over 2.8 million migrants at the US-Mexico border since its implementation.

The pandemic public health restrictions under Title 42, which were implemented during the Trump administration and were used by officials to prevent migrants from entering the US-Mexico border, are scheduled to end on May 11.

During the 2020 presidential debates, Biden hypocritically said, “This is the first president in the history of the United States of America that anybody seeking asylum has to do it in another country. That’s never happened before in America.”

https://youtu.be/yGPfKkjDIts

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