OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
CNN is a house divided and that was never more evident than it was after former President Donald Trump’s town hall.
The network received a noticeable bump in ratings for airing the town hall, but it caused disarray among the staff in a phone call that was obtained by The New York Post.
“You do not have to like the former president’s answers, but you can’t say that we didn’t get them,” CNN CEO Chris Licht said to his staff on the call obtained by The Post.
He said that CNN “[m]ade a lot of news” and “that is our job.”
He also praised the town hall’s host Kaitlan Collins for “pressing” the former president.
“Kaitlan pressed him again and again and made news,” he said.
He said that he understood why some of the staff may have been “uncomfortable when the audience cheered after Trump called Collins “nasty.”
“While we all may have been uncomfortable hearing people clapping, that was also an important part of the story,” he said.
But, according to The Hill, a lot of the network’s talent expressed anger and resentment at CEO Licht’s decision to feature Trump.
According to early data from Nielsen Media Research, Wednesday night’s town hall drew an audience of over 3 million viewers. This figure signifies a substantial increase of more than 300 percent compared to a regular weeknight at 8 p.m. for a network that typically trails behind Fox News and MSNBC, the outlet noted.
However, CNN faced both political and media controversy as Trump disregarded moderator Kaitlan Collins’s attempts to fact-check a series of statements he made during the event. Notably, the crowd present at the town hall in New Hampshire strongly expressed their support for the Republican candidate, further intensifying the situation.
“It was a total debacle, and I’ve never been more ashamed to work at CNN,” one prominent on-air talent at the network told The Hill on Thursday. “I don’t think anybody came out looking good. This is entirely a corporate and management failure. They should have anticipated how out of control Trump would be … to think he was going to act more presidential in that kind of setting is just naivety on a galactic scale.”
During the event, Trump reiterated previous claims about the outcome and conduct of the 2020 election against now-President Joe Biden; he caused a stir when he referred to Collins briefly as “a nasty person”; he said he did not even know E. Jean Carroll, who was awarded a multimillion-dollar settlement earlier this week by a federal jury in New York over claims of sexual abuse and defamation — during which the crowd responded approvingly.
“This woman, I don’t know her. I never met her. I have no idea who she is,” Trump said.
Democratic lawmakers were angry, too.
“There is simply no way CNN can feign ignorance about the fact that they set up a sexual assault victim to be targeted and attacked on national television a day after the verdict. People were sounding the alarm about this exact scenario. They let it happen anyway without a plan,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tweeted.
This, the choice to platform election disinformation, lies about January 6th, totally unchecked and reckless claims about abortion… they need to take ownership of what just happened.
This cannot be normalized. It’s dangerous.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 11, 2023
“This, the choice to platform election disinformation, lies about January 6th, totally unchecked and reckless claims about abortion… they need to take ownership of what just happened. This cannot be normalized. It’s dangerous,” she said.
Joy Behar, one of the controversial co-hosts of ABC’s “The View,” wrote, “The Cnn thing is a joke. The audience is stacked with his cult. Kaitlin is good, but it’s impossible to deal with this pathological liar.
“CNN should be embarrassed by this audience. They are enthralled with him and that emboldens him. It’s like encouraging a toddler to behave badly. #Cult,” she said. “This is more like one of his rallies where the sycophants bow down to their cult leader. #cult.
“Are these questioners just a bunch of plants? I mean, not one critical questioner? All are in love with this fool?” the host added.
