Ex-Trump aide says former president hurt by CNN’s town hall: America ‘saw he’s a raving, ranting lunatic’
Others complained that Trump shouldn’t be normalized.
“The View” bucked the trend Thursday with a discussion about CNN’s town hall with Donald Trump, with one of the hosts saying the widely criticized decision to give the former president a platform was actually good news for America.
CNN’s airing of the show has caused “outrage and fear” in the U.S. and among the country’s international allies, CNN’s Jim Scuitto reported Thursday.
For a little over an hour, Trump was allowed to lie without enough fact-checking, lamented the View’s Sunny Hostin. She complained that moderator Kaitlan Collins took too long before she began to correct his claims.
But Alyssa Farah Griffin, who previously worked for Trump in the White House, argued that it is important to give him a platform because it would allow him to remind the world of who he is, and said that’s exactly what happened.
“Seventy-four million people voted for him,” said Griffin, “He’s the GOP frontrunner, outperforming other people by double digits. By the way, people got to see who he is: a ranting lunatic siding with Vladimir Putin. He didn’t win a single voter. That was radioactive for independents and moderates.”
Trump claimed that he had finished his promised wall on the border with Mexico.
“I did finish the wall. I built a wall,” he said. “I built hundreds of miles of wall, and I finished it. Mexico will pay for the border wall…
SO WHY ALL THE ISSUES ON THE SOUTHWESTERN BORDER IF TRUMP BUILT HIS MIGHTY MIRACULOUS WALL? SO WHO IS AT FAULT? TRUMP FOR NOT DOING HIS JOB FOR 4 YEARS MAYBE…
Trump insisted on Thursday that he has been unwavering in his stance for building a border wall between Mexico and the United States to thwart illegal immigration.
He was responding to — and directly contradicting — private statements by John F. Kelly, his chief of staff, who told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had not been “fully informed” when he first promised the wall, and that the president’s position on building it had “evolved” over time.
“The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter at 6:15 a.m. Thursday.
As of February 2023, CNN had 80 million television households as subscribers in the US.[11] According to Nielsen, in June 2021 CNN ranked third in viewership among cable news networks, behind Fox News and MSNBC, averaging 580,000 viewers throughout the day, down 49% from a year earlier, amid sharp declines in viewers across all cable news networks.
Licht has expressed a desire to change negative perceptions of CNN among Republicans.[24]
In late 2022, Licht received criticism as CNN terminated the contracts of several long-time correspondents including Brian Stelter, John Harwood and Jeffrey Toobin.[25] The Washington Post described the moves “as the latest evidence of a shift to a less politically charged tone under new leader Chris Licht.”[25]
CNN head defends Trump’s lie-strewn town hall: ‘America was served very well’
Chris Licht boasts that network ‘made a lot of news’ in call to angry staff but CNN reporter laments Trump’s ‘firehose of disinformation’
- CNN boss Chris Licht loved the network’s town hall with former US president Donald Trump.
- Licht said that he’s aware of the backlash but believes “America was served very well” by the event.
- While the audience’s cheers in response to Trump’s answers were “uncomfortable,” it was “important,” he added.
CNN’s Chris Licht ‘Unequivocally’ Believes the Trump Town Hall Served America ‘Very Well’
On a call to staffers Thursday morning, the CEO said the audience’s applause around Trump’s E. Jean Carroll jokes was ”an important part of the story“
CNN’s Chris Licht Defends Donald Trump Town Hall: “I Absolutely, Unequivocally Believe America Was Served Very Well By What We Did Last Night”
Here's A Thing... 