Speaker 1: CNN is holding a town hall event tonight for Donald Trump in Saint Anselm at Saint
Anselm College in New Hampshire. This was already a very high stakes media event in the sense that
this is not a normal person. This is not I don't know. You know, Sununu's running and we're going
to do a town hall or whatever the case may be. Mitt Romney, you know, this is one of the most
destructive forces to ever hold. The White House, who was impeached twice, has been arrested and
charged, was just found liable of sexual assault and defamation and owes Jean Carroll $5 million.
Incited an insurrection to try to remain in the White House despite having lost an election,
which to this day he claims he actually won. This is not a normal person. And so from a media
ratings and profit perspective, I understand why CNN is giving Trump a town hall. I get it. I don't
yet want to pass judgment as to whether it will be a responsible or irresponsible thing to do,
because I want to see how CNN handles it at this point in time. How do you not bring up the sexual
assault decision from that jury? How do you not bring up January 6th? How do you not bring up the
arrest and the likely additional forthcoming arrest in Georgia that we expect to happen
sometime between July and August? Are they going to handle this responsibly or is it going to be
Mr. Trump? What will you do to stop Biden Marxism if you were to get another term in
office, Right. If it's that okay. If it's if that's the type of thing we're going to see,
this may be one of the most irresponsible media events that we ever witnessed. Now,
which of the two is it going to be? I don't know. The Associated Press, CNN's town hall with Trump
Takes On Higher Stakes After sexual Abuse Verdict. Trump will return to CNN's airwaves Wednesday,
joining the network for a two hour town hall event in early voting New Hampshire, a day after a civil
jury found him liable for sexually assaulting an advice columnist nearly three decades ago.
The forum, which was announced last week, was expected to be notable because it would
be bringing together a network and a candidate who have sparred with each other. But the stakes
raised considerably Tuesday after jurors in New York found Trump sexually abused and defamed Jean
Carroll, though it rejected her claim that he raped her, the jury awarded her $5 million in
charges. It also returns focus to questions over Trump's treatment of women over the years. Yeah,
raising the stakes for an event at which he will be forced to respond to tough questioning from
host Kaitlan Collins in the audience. Well, we don't know that. Will it be tough questioning? I
don't know. Carol is more than one. More than a dozen women, one of more than a dozen women who
accused Trump of sexual assault or harassment. I think the number is actually closer to 50.
Trump has historically not reacted well when pressed onstage about his behavior toward women,
most notably during the first debate in 2015, when he sparred with Fox host Megyn Kelly.
He later said she had blood coming out of her whatever when she was questioning him. That was
an insane moment. So I am sort of maintaining an open mind or whatever you would say. And many of
you have written to me and said, David, you don't need to keep an open mind. What CNN is going to
do is completely irresponsible. It's going to be nuts. Now, let's address a little bit about my
plans for coverage of this event. My plan was to stream the town hall live and then to do a
sort of retrospective on it on tomorrow's show. Let's deal with two parts of that. Am I going to
do that? And then morally, what do I think about the whole thing? Let's actually start with the
morally first. I believe that what CNN is going to do tonight may be completely, completely immoral
journalistically, but it may not. I want to wait and see how it goes. I want to see how Kaitlan
Collins handles it. I want to see what sort of questions are selected, the entire thing.
My plan to cover it live tonight and to discuss it tomorrow. You know, a few people wrote to me
and said, David, you're doing something just as bad as CNN. No, I. With peace and love,
I completely reject that notion. We do a program that is heavily centered around media analysis
and media criticism. Whether I talk about the fact that this event took place or not,
it's taking place. I have nothing to do with the fact that it's taking place and I want to
cover it in order to analyze how CNN handles the event. Okay. So I don't have, you know,
the idea that I'm doing the same things CNN is doing by talking about or covering the event,
I reject it completely. We do media analysis. We do media criticism here. Now, that being said, am
I actually going to cover the event live tonight? No. And the reason why is CNN, our our YouTube rep
and our Twitch contact both. And we have nobody at Facebook, but I mean, assume it's the same thing.
Twitch and YouTube have told me. CNN plans to go really hard against anyone who broadcasts
that event live tonight. They will shut you down. They will shut you down on YouTube. They
will shut you down on Twitch. And you know what? I believe it because CNN has done it
before. So the plan for tonight is I'm going to stream a pre-show. We are going to have
clips, interviews with people on the ground there at Saint Anselm in New Hampshire. We're going to
discuss the context surrounding this event going live at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. The event starts at 9
p.m., I believe. Let me just verify that. Trump Town Hall, New Hampshire, May ten Start time.
It was scheduled for nine. I want to make sure that's the case. CNN says how to watch.
Um. Oh, it's 8 p.m.. Okay, so let's actually do it differently. It starts at 8 p.m.. I will
go live at 7 p.m. Eastern. We'll do an hour pre-show and then we'll end the stream. And
if you want to watch the event, you can go and watch it from 8 to 10 on an official platform,
CNN online or whatever. And if you don't want to watch it, then I will do a retrospective
of it tomorrow. So that's our plan. I will be watching for. Do they actually bring, quote, tough
questions to Trump? Is Trump held accountable? Is Trump treated as the abnormal president that he
was and and the abnormal candidate that he is? Or does CNN normalize him? All questions which
we will find out answers to tonight. Join me at 7 p.m. Eastern. I will see you then.