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“CNN's controversial town hall with former President Donald Trump drew 3.3 million viewers Wednesday night, making CNN the most-watched cable news network of the evening… The event delivered a much-needed ratings boost for CNN, though at a cost. The network faced blowback from critics and employees who argued it gave the former president a platform to lie in real-time.” Axios
The right pushes back against the idea that CNN should not give Trump a platform, and generally praises his performance.
“We’ve heard a lot of naysayers deriding the recent town hall or even the idea of mainstream media interviews with Mr. Trump as ‘platforming’ a monster. Monster or not, Mr. Trump is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination… I wonder if there’s more driving the hyperventilating about the town hall than just providing a platform to a monster…
“Could Democrats be worried that Mr. Trump’s brio and showmanship might strike a chord with some voters? Could his performance remind some independents that while they may not be overtly pro-Trump, they are more than a little anti-anti-Trump?… Town halls like this one help Americans to think for themselves. It wasn’t so long ago that journalists were able to report hard truths and conduct tough interviews without worrying about upsetting some segment of their viewers.”
Bill Sammon, New York Times
“[Moderator Kaitlan] Collins asked a series of questions only Democrats care about. She asked about Jan. 6. She asked about Trump's election denial. She asked about classified documents. She asked about E. Jean Carroll. In short, Collins provided Trump with precisely what he wanted: an adversarial CNN foe he could absolutely pummel, to the delight of the friendly crowd. The entire event played to Trump's strengths…
“Trump under fire from the Left draws nothing but admiration from most Republicans, who constantly feel that they are scurrilously attacked but rarely see a defender willing to go dirty to defend them.”
Ben Shapiro, Creators
“The former president had several fantastic moments. His response to the Biden-induced inflation crisis — ‘drill, baby, drill’ — clearly and succinctly rejected the Democratic Party’s voluntary destruction of the American economy. His refusal to publicly take sides regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine — reframing the objective as ending mass death — demonstrated his instinct for restrained and careful foreign policy…
“And yes, it would be a lie to say that witnessing his calm and trademark destruction of the legacy media on several occasions, including the moment when he presented a printout of his social media communications surrounding the Jan. 6 riots, wasn’t hugely entertaining.”
Ian Haworth, Washington Examiner
“Trump performed in his typical manner: brash, audacious, rude and also hilarious… Trump was in command of the room and the evening — and the degree to which his energy level seems leaps and bounds beyond an increasingly frail Joe Biden can’t be underestimated. Trump does not look like he’s about to keel over in the next five years — can the Democrats say the same about Biden?”
Ben Domenech, Spectator World
The left criticizes both Trump’s performance and the town hall’s format.
The left criticizes both Trump’s performance and the town hall’s format.
“His statements at the town hall were replete with false claims. He lied when he said the election was stolen. He still claims that those supporters who stormed the Capitol are patriots and good people. He still will not commit to accepting the outcome of the 2024 election. As he puts it, he will accept the outcome if he thinks it is fair. And he has made clear that he intends to attack the institutions of the federal government if he is reelected to the presidency… He is who he was. If there was any doubt about that, his performance on CNN erased it.”
Dan Balz, Washington Post
“[CNN CEO Chris Licht] congratulated the town hall’s moderator, Kaitlan Collins, on her effort to coax [the] truth out of Trump’s lies. And he did so in particular terms: ‘Kaitlan pressed him again and again and made news,’ Licht said, according to the media reporter (and former CNN anchor) Brian Stelter. ‘Made a lot of news.’ And ‘that is our job.’… It is not, in fact, CNN’s job to make news. It is CNN’s job to report the news, to explain the news, to make sense of the news…
“[Historian Daniel] Boorstin coined the term pseudo-event to describe the spectacle that exists merely to be documented: the press conference, the news release, the campaign rally. The coinage informs today’s idea of the media event: the thing that occurs primarily so that journalists can tell their audiences about the occurrence…
“Boorstin anticipated the strain of cynicism CNN was employing last [week] as it gave its air over to a demagogue and then filled even more of its air with pundits professing indignation at all the demagoguery. This is vertical integration of the worst kind. The network ‘makes news’ and then talks about the news that has been made, and then agrees that the news that has been made is dangerous to the republic.”
Megan Garber, The Atlantic
“Live TV interviews will always favor those who prefer mendacity. This is what scholars term an ‘affordance’ of the medium. It’s not that a savvy and persistent interviewer—think Ted Koppel in his prime—will never be able to effectively counter lies, but that the format’s structure significantly favors distribution of unproven allegations (and even falsehoods) over interjected corrections. As long as Trump’s town hall was going to be aired live, Trump knew he would ‘win’ it…
“There was nothing stopping CNN from livestreaming last [week’s] town hall solely on CNN.com. If it were, the viewers most invested in the live experience could elect to watch the livestream video, and then CNN could have aired a produced version, with edits and a narrative track, in the format of a 60 Minutes-style package immediately following…
“This isn’t 2015, and it’s not even 2020. Those executives now have a record compiled over almost a decade showing TV’s best practices—and its failures.”
Michael J. Socolow, Slate
