CNN’s Town Hall With Trump and His List of Gripes

Hi everyone, I’m Rick Barron, your host, and welcome to my podcast, That’s Life, I Swear

Shortly after former President Donald Trump wrapped his CNN town hall, President Biden tweeted out a message: "It's simple, folks, do you want four more years of that?"

Let’s jump into this 

To the Republican candidates who have thrown their hat into the ring, what you saw in New Hampshire on the evening on May 10th, for 70 minutes, is what to expect on the campaign trail and debates.

During the townhall, Trump used his platform to recite his past and current list of gripes such as:

·       False statements about his accuser E. Jean Carroll that convinced a jury to hold him liable for defamation as well as sexual abuse, but also describe Carroll as a “wack job.”  

·       Throwing out insults at “Crazy Nancy”, aka, Nancy Peolsi

·       His ongoing insistence that the 2020 election was rigged, an oldie but goodie

·       And his subtle intention to pardon ‘some’ of Jan. 6 insurrectionists should he return to the White House

He used the same gimmicks, ranting, and blabbering, shooting out incomplete sentences and using his typical accordion hand gestures. When answering the audience's questions, if one can call it that, his responses were broken and fragmented. One question he didn’t even come close to answering! If people were waiting to hear an intellectual speak, you couldn’t have been serious.

As Trump delivered his talk, dumb as it was, I couldn’t help but see a clown with a drink in one hand and a microphone in the other and watching a cheap comedian inside a bar lounge. The thought that we’re STILL talking about this guy and that he’s getting another shot at running for the presidency, is something I can’t see but a nightmare. By the way, don’t think that Donald doesn’t have a chance…poll numbers thus far reflect he has a viable shot at winning. 

Why does this matter?

CNN wanted to stage a simple town hall meeting but soon 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. Nevertheless, she held her own with Trump, asking tough, fair and revealing questions. Kaitlan deflected a Trump insult when he referred to her as “a nasty person.”

What was disturbing was there was an ugliness in the audience that was heavily Republican by the way. As Trump read off his flash cards, demeaning E. Jean Carroll, after a jury held him liable for defamation and sexual abuse, he received applause from the crowd. 

What I found very sad is when Trump referenced Carroll as a “wack job”, only the men in the audience applauded while the women did not and sat very stoic. 

Why? People who support Trump, warts and all, like Trump, because he leverages that raw emotional and ugly itch in part of the American populace who say ‘I like Trump because he says what we’re thinking.’ If that’s the case then those are some very ugly thoughts.

Back to the townhall

As Trump was spilling his guts out, his lawyers must’ve been pounding their heads on the table saying, ‘shut up, shut up, shut up…’

CNN won big ratings for its controversial town hall Trump; and perhaps that was the ultimate goal. Just a year into his tenure, CNN’s new CEO, Chris Licht, is pushing hard to polish the brand and enlarge its audience base. Cable news is a very competitive business that lives and dies on big personalities and exclusive access. In March, the network was down 61% in prime-time ratings, drawing an average of just 473,000 viewers compared with MSNBC’s 1.14 million and 2.09 million for Fox.

Chris is guiding CNN with the merger of its former parent company, Warner Bros., with Discovery, where the chief executive, David Zaslav, is now CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Zaslav and Licht are brainstorming new ideas to mode CNN as a nonpartisan network. “We have divided government. We need to hear both voices,” Zaslav told CNBC last week. “Republicans are on air on CNN, and Democrats are on air on CNN. All voices should be heard on CNN.” In a memo accompanying a brutal round of layoffs in December, Licht articulated his intention to “expand and diversify the viewpoints we bring our audience.”

Ok, all good intentions, but looking the other way on a decision to host a liar on a national stage, in an unpredictable live setting, is not a win a win for bipartisanship.

All we saw was a moron who filled the air for 70 minutes, with child-like verbal nonsense.

The day after the town hall, Anderson Cooper defended his network’s decision to host the event with Trump during an opening monologue on his prime-time show. He did convey he “understood the anger,” being directed at CNN. 

“You have every right to be outraged and angry and never watch this network again,” Cooper said. “But do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?” Perhaps he has a point.

On the flip side of that coin however, is that the American people, democrats, republicans, independents, and even Trump’s ‘Base’ want the focal point to be on issues facing this country.  Issues such as the ongoing Ukraine War, the economy, Health care, Climate Change, Social Security, Gun Policy, Immigration, Education and more. 

To hear a grown-up acting like a child and throwing a tantrum is not at the top of their list.

To no one's surprise, Trump treated the town hall like a rally—which is to say, a combination of stand-up set and gaslighting session. An audience made up of likely New Hampshire GOP primary voters, i.e. an almost entirely white cohort of Republicans and independents, was given free rein to cheer at any mention of Trump’s foes, and, most disturbingly, laugh at his jokey mischaracterizations of Carroll and other favorite targets.

Hard as it seems, he remains the current frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination. That said, Trump getting a second chance to finish what he started should serve as an alarm bell to those who thought he was going to fade away.

The road to Election Day 2024 has never looked more treacherous and nerve racking. Hang on everyone.

What can we learn from this story? What’s the take away

It seems CNN has learned nothing from Trump’s past and was focused more on improving their ratings by giving the stage to "the twice-impeached and newly indicted ex-president", another chance to preach his falsehoods and misinformation. 

Be that as it may, what we saw on the stage that evening was Trump has not changed into a more responsible, disciplined, or mature person than he was as president. On the contrary, his worst impulses have, if anything, gotten worse: his contempt for the truth, the rule of law, and the U.S. Constitution was on full display for everyone to see. 

Well, there you go. That's life, I swear.

For further information regarding the material covered in this episode, I invite you to visit my website, which you can find on either Apple Podcasts/iTunes or Google Podcasts, for show notes calling out key pieces of content mentioned and the episode transcript.

As always, I thank you for listening. 

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