Kaitlan Collins, the CNN host, defended her decision to moderate the town hall session on Wednesday with the controversial ex-President Donald J. Trump after it ignited controversy and caused discontent within the network.
Collins said the following day, attempting to lend gravitas to an episode that many likened to a clown show, that “about last night,” the seventy minutes she spent on stage with former President Donald Trump in New Hampshire was a significant turning point in the search for the nominee of the Republican Party, and potentially the starting line for the next presidential race in the United States.
She said that the most telling was that Trump spent most of those seventy minutes defending himself. He was not focused on President Joe Biden, even after Trump advisers privately urged him to look to the future rather than backward. Meanwhile, Collins’ first question was about the 2020 election.
Liberals, including many rival networks, heavily criticized CNN’s town hall.
According to MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, he thought this would be bad last night, but it was much worse than he feared.
Even though Hasan had “great respect” for Collins, he said, “Last night, it just wasn’t good enough.”
He questioned where the preparation was and said as much.
The town hall meeting review was followed by a series of shorter interviews on CNN with Republican lawmakers who disapproved of Trump’s performance and comments. These politicians included the well-known Trump-basher Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Senator Todd Young (R-IN).
Romney stated what the people saw was what they would get with another Trump term, an administration completely untethered to the truth.
Young stated that he would not be supporting Trump in the Republican primary.
On Wednesday, CNN’s senior media correspondent, Oliver Darcy, said in his Reliable Sources newsletter that the network was “facing a fury of criticism” for interviewing Donald Trump on live television.
There was dissenting opinion coming from within and without the company.
