CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy strongly protested his own network’s thorough defense of the event, condemning the Donald Trump town hall that aired earlier in the evening, calling it a “spectacle of lies”, meaning That he has harmed the country. ,
“It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening,” Darcy said in a new installment. their trusted source newsletterWhich came just 15 minutes after CNN released what was essentially a bragging statement about the incident.
Darcy begins with a description of Trump’s behavior and his conversation with the town hall moderator, Kaitlan Collins. Collins, Darcy said, was “tough and knowledgeable,” [sic] and “fact-checking Trump throughout.” The problem, Darcy argued, was that it was meaningless to respond to someone like the disgraced former president.
“A professional lie machine, Trump fired out lies at a rapid clip,” wrote Darcy, “stole command of the stage at some point in the town hall, using his flamboyance to overwhelm Collins.”
“Trump lied about the 2020 election. He did not take any responsibility for the 6 January rebellion that the same people had instigated with the lie. And he mocked E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault allegations, for which a jury found him guilty on Tuesday,” Darcy said. And then he turned his critical gaze to his boss.
“And CNN aired it all. On and on. It felt like 2016 all over again. It was Trump’s unruly social media feed brought to life on stage,” Darcy wrote. “And Collins got a placed in an uncomfortable position, given that the town hall was conducted in front of a Republican audience that applauded Trump, giving a sense of unintended support for his shameful antics.”
Darcy said the event at least exposed voters to Trump’s extremist views on topics such as the debt ceiling and the war in Ukraine, but cautioned that “for most of the night, the nation’s eyes were on Trump’s abuse of the platform”. Stayed.”
Darcy noted that according to multiple reports, Trump’s team is thrilled with how the incident turned out, and revealed that CNN and CEO Chris Licht are also facing a “fury of criticism” from within CNN in addition to the public outcry. .
“How Licht and other CNN executives address the criticism in the days and weeks ahead will be critical. Will they defend what happened at St. Anselm College? Or will they express some regret?” Darcy asked.
Yet, Darcy said, “CNN is defending itself.”
Darcy was far from the only critic of the event. CNN was widely criticized during the broadcast and for hours afterward. Alongside the criticism, which ranged from “unprofessional of Trump” to “anti-American”, there were also calls from prominent journalists and pundits for Licht himself to resign.
Viewers called out the narrowly partisan makeup of the audience, and noted how the town hall amounted to just over an hour in which Trump repeatedly lied, dissed, avoided questions and more about the 2020 election. Made false claims.
Critics also noted that Trump was allowed to insult E. Jean Carroll, actually a day after he was convicted of sexual assault and to defame Him, without Collins pushing back against him in any meaningful way. And later, Trump even personally insulted Collins.
Read more about it here.