Speaker 1: So many of you emailing me this morning.
The general message has been David, sir.
Did you see that CNN is doing a Trump town hall?
Have they not learned anything from all of the free publicity they gave him in 2016?
Is this because of Chris Licht taking over CNN?
And number three, is CNN going to pretend that Trump's just a normal candidate, not
a guy who incited an insurrectionist riot and has been arrested?
Are they really going to pretend that he's a normal candidate?
All absolutely great questions.
So let's dive into it first and foremost.
Here is Jim Sciutto announcing on CNN that, yes, Donald Trump will be doing a town hall
next week.
Let's listen.
Speaker 2: And just in to CNN, former President Donald Trump will participate in a CNN presidential
town hall next week.
The former president will take questions from New Hampshire Republicans and undeclared voters
who do plan to vote in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.
CNN this morning, anchor Kaitlan Collins will moderate the May 10th town hall at Saint Anselm
College while at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.
Stay with CNN News Central.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to give you both sides of this, because I have to say, this is a
brilliant move strategically by CNN.
And it couldn't possibly come with better timing.
So I'm going to explain that in a moment.
First, let's talk about the kind of societal implication and the problem with this.
Trump is unique in many senses, and this election is unique.
It's a former president who lost reelection but is running again, but also tried to steal
the election.
He lost and has since been arrested and indicted.
And it's going to likely be a rematch with the guy he lost to in 2020.
Totally unique, unprecedented situation in American history.
So the problem with just, hey, we're doing a town hall is the normalization of Trump
as just another candidate when he is arguably one of the most dangerous departures from
how we expect the presidency and democracy to work in the United States.
Our friend Brian Tyler Cohen found the moment from a Kara Swisher interview with CNN's current
chief Chris Licht, where he says, We're not going to turn into Trump 24 seven.
Here he is saying this was just in November.
Speaker 2: You ended up talking about him for 8 hours a day.
And we're not going to do that.
We're going to be very clear and take everything on a case by case basis about what level of
coverage it should be.
Speaker 4: So meaning that it will not be quite hand-waving.
Speaker 2: We are not going to be a 24 seven Trump news network.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Now, a lot of things have changed since November 17th of 2022 when that podcast episode was
filmed, and there are so many absolutely accurate criticisms of what CNN is doing.
Our friend Erin Rupert tweeted, quote, It shouldn't have to be said, but it's irresponsible
for any media outlet to treat a guy who attempted a coup after the last presidential election
like a normal presidential candidate.
Are they going to treat him like a normal presidential candidate next week on the town
hall?
I don't know.
So that is all extraordinarily disturbing and concerning.
We're going to have to see how they treat him.
Now let's get to the genius of what CNN is doing.
And again, it's really important.
I'm not praising CNN in terms of how they're going to handle this.
I don't know how they're going to handle it, but I'm extraordinarily concerned.
The genius of what CNN is doing is that we now have and this was probably planned before
Tucker was fired by Fox News, We now have a situation where there are certainly millions
of people in the United States, at minimum, who are furious with Fox News.
They wrongly believe Tucker Carlson's firing was for political reasons.
They agree with Trump's attacks on Fox News, which have been going on now for months.
You have a group of people who are looking for any reason to find something other than
Fox News to now become what they watch.
Trump going on CNN.
Is now giving all of those people the opportunity to say, you know what, CNN maybe is fake news
or maybe it was back when Trump was president.
But Fox now is a disaster.
I'm abandoning Fox.
Fox is now the enemy.
And look, CNN is at least giving my guy the time of day.
They're going to give him a town hall.
And I don't know.
The timing is actually quite perfect for CNN from a business standpoint.
And I am so curious to see whether the attitude towards CNN changes dramatically from Trump
supporters.
I'll tell you, all it will take is Trump during the town hall praising CNN for having him
and attacking Fox and then after the fact, posting some truths about it and others on
the right saying, hey, you know what, we've been critical of CNN.
Fox is the problem.
At least CNN is giving.
You know, my dad, Don Jr, can say at the time of day or whatever else the case may be and
all of a sudden.
It's not CNN becoming Trumpian, but it totally changes the media picture.
Now, as far as the substance.
If CNN treats Trump the way he should be treated.
I've talked about responsible platforming so many times before.
Responsible platforming means you don't rule someone in or out just on the basis of who
they are.
For an interview, I've interviewed white supremacists, I've interviewed homophobes, I've interviewed
all these different things.
You've got to platform them responsibly.
And if CNN were to do that, and if there is subject matter holding Trump to account for
the riotous insurrection that that he incited in terms of the arrest, all these things,
I am completely fine with it.
Do I expect that that's what they're going to do?
It is not what I expect that they're going to do.
And who knows what may have been even pre-negotiated with regard to some of those things.
I will be watching with great interest as a media analyst and media critic, but I'm
going to withhold judgment about whether CNN handles this correctly or incorrectly until
I see it.
That'll be next week.
But that is the big news.
Trump, CNN town hall.
And this also gets to the Santas by not announcing.
And remember, he can't announce unless he resigns in Florida.
Those are the rules from the governorship, unless he changes the law, which he's working
on doing.
So he's got a little bit of a problem He actually can't announce right now if he wants to remain
governor.
But the other problem for DeSantis is, as he's sort of crumbling in the polls, he doesn't
get any of these opportunities unless he's actually a candidate.
A maybe candidate is not going to get a CNN town hall.
This is a growing problem for Ron DeSantis that he's going to have to figure out.