CNN chairman defends decision to host Trump town hall
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Mr Chris Licht congratulated the moderator, Ms Kaitlan Collins, on “a masterful performance” before acknowledging the public backlash.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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NEW HAMPSHIRE – The chairman of CNN, Mr Chris Licht, issued a robust defence on Thursday of his decision to broadcast a live town hall with former president Donald Trump,
On a network-wide editorial call, Mr Licht congratulated the moderator, Ms Kaitlan Collins, on “a masterful performance” before acknowledging the public backlash.
“We all know covering Donald Trump is messy and tricky, and it will continue to be messy and tricky, but it’s our job,” Mr Licht added, according to a recording of the call obtained by The New York Times.
“I absolutely, unequivocally believe America was served very well by what we did last night,” he said. “People woke up and they know what the stakes are in this election in a way that they didn’t the day before.”
The town hall, which aired in prime time on Wednesday, featured Trump deploying a fusillade of falsehoods, sometimes too quickly for the moderator to intercept.
He repeated a web of conspiracies about a stolen 2020 presidential election and the “beautiful day” of the Capitol riot on Jan 6, 2021 – language that was likely to befuddle half the viewing audience and resonate as gospel with the rest.
“The election was not rigged, Mr President,” Ms Collins said at one point. “You cannot keep saying that all night long.” (He kept saying it.)
The live audience, a group of Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters, often cheered him on, even when he derided Ms Collins as a “nasty person”.
Critics said it was reckless for the network to provide Trump with a live forum, given his track record of spreading disinformation. Even the network’s own commentators appeared taken aback by what transpired on its airwaves.
“We don’t have enough time to fact-check every lie he told,” Mr Jake Tapper told viewers on Wednesday night.
The town hall was watched by 3.3 million people, according to Nielsen, a significant increase from CNN’s typical audience on an average weeknight at 8pm.
That was slightly more than the average viewership for Tucker Carlson’s Fox News programme, which was seen by an average of 3.2 million people in the first three months of the year. NYTIMES
