From THEHILL.COM
CNN won big ratings for its controversial town hall with former President Trump — but also outraged some of its own talent for essentially handing over its platform to the GOP presidential frontrunner and his supporters for an hour.
More than 3 million people watched Wednesday night’s town hall, early data from Nielsen Media Research showed, representing a more than 300 percent increase from a typical weeknight at 8 p.m. for a network consistently running behind Fox News and MSNBC.
Yet CNN also found itself at the center of a political and media controversy after Trump steamrolled moderator Kaitlan Collins’s efforts to fact-check a series of false statements he made in front of a crowd that was vocally supportive of the Republican.
“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 repeated his false claims about his loss in the 2020 election, waved away charges of sexual misconduct and repeatedly interrupted Collins, referring to her at one point as “a nasty person.”
He said he never knew E. Jean Carroll, the woman who a day prior won a civil lawsuit in New York accusing Trump of sexual abuse and defamation.
During one particularly jarring moment, the crowd in the St. Anselm College auditorium in New Hampshire whooped, cheered and laughed as Trump mocked Carroll over her accusations of rape in a New York department store in 1997.
“This woman, I don’t know her. I never met her. I have no idea who she is,” Trump said.
Democratic lawmakers blasted CNN for putting Trump on the air, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N. Y.) calling the town hall “a disservice to democracy, but also a major harm for women, survivors, & people who rely on repro rights.”
“CNN allowing sexual assault to be treated like a joke to an applauding audience is egregious,” she said. “At this point it’s not abt Trump- we know him. It’s abt the programming.”
CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy in his newsletter noted that new network CEO Chris Licht was “facing a fury of criticism — both internally and externally over the event.”
