CNN’s Defense of Trump Town Hall Is It ‘Made News’—but Did It?
The morning after CNN’s calamitous Donald Trump town hall, network chief Chris Licht passionately defended the network’s decision to provide the ex-president with a primetime platform to spew an endless stream of lies and conspiracies, all while unleashing gross misogynistic attacks on a woman he sexually abused AND the network’s own anchor.
In a Thursday morning call with CNN staffers, many of whom were incensed over the on-air fiasco, Licht applauded Kaitlan Collins’ attempts to fact-check Trump and force him to answer questions while boasting of the event’s inherent news value. “Kaitlan pressed [Trump] again and again and made news,” Licht said, adding that it “made a LOT of news,” and that is the “job” of CNN.
“And I’ll say this as clearly as I possibly can: You do not have to like the former president’s answers, but you can’t say we didn’t get them,” Licht added. “America was served very well by what we did last night. People woke up and they know what the stakes are in this election in a way they didn’t the day before.”