President Trump Responds to CNN Giving Him Town Hall Platform

CNN faced criticism for allowing Donald Trump to have a platform on the network during Wednesday night’s town hall.

Perhaps they’re salty that Trump embarrassed anchor Kaitlan Collins at the event and received a standing ovation from the audience.

Anderson Cooper: ‘You Have Every Right to Never Watch This Network Again’

CNN benefitted from the event by witnessing a drastic spike in its viewership.

3.1 million people watched the town hall Wednesday night.

Anderson Cooper: ‘You Have Every Right to Never Watch This Network Again’

However, many people in the mainstream media aren't happy that Trump had the platform.

Anderson Cooper said viewers had every right to never watch CNN again.

Anderson Cooper: ‘You Have Every Right to Never Watch This Network Again’

CNN received backlash from liberal pundits for giving Donald Trump the platform to embarrass the network.

From The Washington Post

CNN’s prime-time broadcast of a raucous town hall with Donald Trump propelled a tsunami of criticism from inside and outside the network Thursday — and renewed questions about how the news media will handle the challenge of covering the serial falsehoods of the Republican Party’s leading candidate going into the 2024 election.

The former president repeatedly dodged or sneered at questions from CNN’s moderator, Kaitlan Collins, during the live, 70-minute forum at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire on Wednesday night. He doubled down on false claims that “a rigged election” led to his 2020 ouster and referred to writer E. Jean Carroll, who just prevailed in her lawsuit against him for defamation and battery, as a “whack job,” to cheers and laughter from the audience, made up of local Republican voters.

And when Collins pressed him on why he removed classified documents from the White House, he replied: “You are a nasty person.”

“Predictably disastrous,” wrote former network TV news executive Mark Lukasiewicz, part of a chorus of media critics and political observers who bemoaned the on-air spectacle. “Live lying works. A friendly MAGA crowd consistently laughs, claps at Trump’s punchlines … and the moderator cannot begin to keep up with the AR-15 pace of lies.”

At a time when CNN has been struggling to turn around viewership decline, the telecast proved to be a ratings disappointment, with Nielsen reporting just 3.1 million viewers overall. That was a big boost over CNN’s typical 8 p.m. telecast, but a smaller audience than CNN’s town hall with President Biden last summer (3.7 million) and six previous Trump town halls carried by Fox News — calling into question both CNN and Trump’s drawing power.

However, Donald Trump said CNN did a "smart thing."

"People are criticizing CNN for giving me a Forum to tell the TRUTH. I believe it was a very smart thing that they did, with Sky High Ratings that they haven’t seen in a very long time. It was by far the biggest Show of the night, the week, and the month!" Donald Trump posted on Truth Social.

"The Radical Left screamed, 'Take it down, take it down,' during the Show, because they saw that I was making so many important points on the Border, Energy Independence, the Afghanistan Catastrophe, Inflation, the Economy, Russia/Ukraine, and so much more. Many minds were changed on Wednesday night by listening to Common Sense, and sheer 'Brilliance,'" he added.