CNN faces backlash over chaotic Trump town hall event

May 11, 2023, 12:36 PM | Updated: 2:32 pm

FILE - Former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally, Thursday, April 27, 2023, in Manc...

FILE - Former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally, Thursday, April 27, 2023, in Manchester, N.H. Donald Trump's town hall forum on CNN on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, is the first major TV event of the 2024 presidential campaign, and a big test for the chosen moderator, Kaitlan Collins. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS

(AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — CNN is facing a backlash over its town hall featuring former President Donald Trump, an event that swiftly turned chaotic in a stark display of the tightrope facing journalists covering a leading 2024 Republican candidate who refuses to play by the rules.

The town hall Wednesday was the first major television event of the 2024 presidential campaign, and CNN defended its decision to hold it as a chance to put Trump in front of a wider audience, outside of the conservative media bubble he has largely kept to since early in his presidency.

Critics said the event, which was staged in front of Republicans and unaffiliated voters who were expected to vote in the GOP primary, instead turned into a Trump campaign rally and allowed him to repeat longstanding falsehoods while dodging difficult questions

Tom Jones, a senior writer at the media research institute Poynter, said he had favored the idea of CNN holding the town hall at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire. But he said he was surprised by the conduct of the audience, which he had expected to be more neutral.

Instead, the crowd gave Trump a standing ovation when he walked onstage, applauded some of his most provocative comments and laughed at many of his quips, including when he criticized E. Jean Carroll, the advice columnist who accused him of raping her in 1996 and this week won a $5 million judgment against him.

Jones said the atmosphere put CNN’s moderator, Kaitlan Collins, in an almost impossible position as she tried to elicit straightforward answers from Trump and fact-check his comments about the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by his supporters and the 2020 election, which he still falsely insists he won.

“Whenever she might have had him cornered, he was built up by the audience,” Jones said. “It just emboldened him. He realized, ‘I can do or say anything I want,’ and she got steamrolled at that point through no fault of her own. It was her against the entire room.”

The event was indicative of the new era of leadership at CNN and management’s efforts to lure back viewers who turned to Fox News and other conservative outlets over the past decade.

At a Thursday morning meeting at CNN, Chairman and CEO Chris Licht praised Collins’ “masterful performance,” saying she asked tough questions in difficult circumstances.

“If someone was going to ask tough questions and have that messy conversation, that damn well should be on CNN,” he said in a recording of the meeting obtained by The Associated Press.

He also defended the decision to hold the town hall before a Trump-friendly crowd.

“While we all may have been uncomfortable hearing people clapping, that was also an important part of the story, because the people in that audience represent a large swath of America,” Licht said. “And the mistake the media made in the past is ignoring that those people exist. Just like you cannot ignore that President Trump exists.”

The event did widen CNN’s audience, at least for a night. Nielson said the town hall averaged 3.3 million viewers, compared to the 707,000 who tuned in to CNN during the same time slot a night earlier.

But Jones said he was skeptical that the town hall would help CNN’s reputation in the long term, given the backlash. He noted that most of the network’s post-event commentary was highly critical of Trump, likely alienating conservative viewers who had tuned in just to watch the former president.

Nick Arama, a writer for the conservative website RedState.com, criticized CNN’s Gary Tuchman, who spoke with some of the audience members after Trump’s appearance, saying “he didn’t act as much like a moderator trying to get their opinion as a Democratic propagandist trying to impose his own opinion on them.”

Meanwhile, critics from the left were unsparing, saying CNN should have predicted how chaotic the event would be.

“CNN should be ashamed of themselves. 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,” Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of New York, wrote in a tweet.

Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief now at George Washington University, said the event was a harbinger of the difficult coverage decisions “every news organization needs to wrestle with because Donald Trump is not a normal candidate.”

“You can’t ignore him, but you can’t give him carte blanche either,” he said.

A one-on-one interview would have been preferable, though whether Trump would have agreed to that is a different question, said Sesno, who added that he saw value in allowing Trump to speak to a broader audience, including many people who might have mostly tuned him out in recent years.

Sesno noted that although Trump supporters delighted in his performance, Republican critics, including New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, seized on it to to press their concerns about the former president’s ability to win a national election.

“As chaotic and weird as the event was, I as a journalist think it’s important for people to see this,” he said.

___

Associated Press writer Wyatte Grantham-Philips contributed to this report.

United States News

Former President Donald Trump visits with campaign volunteers at the Grimes Community Complex Park,...

Associated Press

Florida grand jury involved in Trump documents probe by Justice Dept., AP source says

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors are using a grand jury in Florida as part of their investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach property, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday night. The grand jury is in addition to a separate panel that has been meeting […]

20 hours ago

FILE - Protesters stand outside of the Senate chamber at the Indiana Statehouse on Feb. 22, 2023, i...

Associated Press

LGBTQ+ Americans are under attack, Human Rights Campaign declares in state of emergency warning

The Human Rights Campaign declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. on Tuesday.

20 hours ago

Associated Press

Racist message, dead raccoon left for Oregon mayor, Black city council member

REDMOND, Ore. (AP) — Someone left a dead raccoon and a sign with “intimidating language” that mentioned a Black city councilor outside the law office of an Oregon mayor, police said. Redmond Mayor Ed Fitch found the raccoon and the sign on Monday, the Redmond Police Department said in a news release. The sign mentioned […]

20 hours ago

FILE - People wait in line outside the Supreme Court in Washington to listen to oral arguments in a...

Associated Press

Supreme Court opened the door to states’ voting restrictions. Now a new ruling could widen them.

Within hours of a U.S. Supreme Court decision dismantling a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Texas lawmakers announced plans to implement a strict voter ID law that had been blocked by a federal court. Lawmakers in Alabama said they would press forward with a similar law that had been on hold.

20 hours ago

FILE - A former iron ore processing plant near Hoyt Lakes, Minn., that would become part of a propo...

Associated Press

US Army Corps revokes permit for Minnesota mine, cites threat to downstream tribe’s water standards

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday it has revoked a crucial federal permit for the proposed NewRange Copper Nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota, a project popularly known as PolyMet, saying the permit did not comply with the water quality standards set by a sovereign downstream tribe. The Corps said in […]

20 hours ago

FILE - The North Carolina Capitol stands, July 24, 2013, in Raleigh, N.C. The promotion of certain ...

Associated Press

North Carolina legislature approves limits on politics, race discussion in state workplaces

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The promotion of certain beliefs that some North Carolina lawmakers have likened to “critical race theory” is on track to be banned in state government workplaces, under a bill that received final legislative approval on Tuesday. The two-pronged proposal that passed the GOP-controlled Senate 30-15, with three Democrats and all present […]

20 hours ago

Sponsored Articles

(Photo: OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center)...

OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center

Here’s what you need to know about OCD and where to find help

It's fair to say that most people know what obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders generally are, but there's a lot more information than meets the eye about a mental health diagnosis that affects about one in every 100 adults in the United States.

(Desert Institute for Spine Care in Arizona Photo)...

Desert Institute for Spine Care in Arizona

5 common causes for chronic neck pain

Neck pain can debilitate one’s daily routine, yet 80% of people experience it in their lives and 20%-50% deal with it annually.

(Photo by Michael Matthey/picture alliance via Getty Images)...

Cox Communications

Valley Boys & Girls Club uses esports to help kids make healthy choices

KTAR’s Community Spotlight focuses on the Boys & Girls Club of the Valley and the work to incorporate esports into children's lives.

CNN faces backlash over chaotic Trump town hall event