I know you said earlier that you will not comment on the platforming of such
atrocious disinformation, but I would.
I think it was a profoundly irresponsible decision.
I don't think that I would be doing my job if I did not say that.
And what we saw tonight was a series of extremely irresponsible decisions that
put a sexual abuse victim at risk, that put that person at risk in front of
a national audience, and I could not have disagreed with it more.
It was shameful.
>> Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pretty viciously criticizing CNN and
its decision to host Donald Trump in a town hall.
Now, that took place just one day after Trump was found guilty in
a civil case involving the sexual assault of Eugene Carroll,
a writer, and the defamation of her after the fact.
Now, there are criticisms coming at
CNN both internally and externally.
For instance, CNN's own Oliver Darcy wrote about the internal criticisms.
And I wanna get to that, but before I do, Cenk.
>> Yeah, so, look, I couldn't disagree more with AOC there.
I think that it's a totally wrong headed way to go, guys.
On the left, we should not be worried about other people speaking.
We should speak and defeat their ideas, okay?
So you're not gonna be able to shut Trump up anyway.
He'll just go on Fox, Newsmax, etc.
You think you're not going to platform him when he's the leading Republican
candidate?
Do we really think we're gonna keep the head of the Republican Party and
the former president off of all of the airwaves for the rest of the campaign?
That is an absolutely preposterous idea.
I have a much better idea, but we'll talk about that as we proceed.
>> I believe that the meltdown that's currently taking place in response to
that CNN town hall is more an indictment of the Democratic Party and its inability,
in their minds, by the way, to beat the nonsense coming from Donald Trump.
Because the way they're coming across, and I don't think they realize this, but
the way they're coming across is, my God, we need to suppress him,
we need to avoid giving him the opportunity to speak.
Because when he speaks, his message is so alluring and so
popular that we couldn't possibly conjure up the policies and
the courage to stand against him, right?
Stand up against him.
The thing is, I think we should have a lot
more trust in the independent voters.
Really, the election is gonna come down to that.
And what gives me faith in those voters is we've already seen
how they've rejected Donald Trump in the midterm elections.
Now, what do I mean by that?
He didn't run in the midterms, right?
But he kinda did.
All of his endorsed candidates, yeah, they won the Republican primaries,
and then they proceeded to lose in the general elections in various
congressional seats that they ran for, or Senate seats that they ran for.
And I mentioned that because, have some faith in the American voters.
The thing that I will say about that town hall that I didn't like is
when you stack the audience, the town hall audience,
with Trump supporters who applaud every terrible thing he says,
it provides an illusion to the viewer that his ideas are popular.
>> Yeah, so >> That was a problem.
>> Well, I agree and disagree with you.
I'll get to that in a second.
But first, look, no one's saying, or at least no rational person is saying that
what he said about Eugene Carroll wasn't atrocious, and
how the crowd reacted wasn't atrocious.
It was.
But that doesn't mean you should censor it.
And remember, guys,
this is an old mainstream media trick done mainly to progressives.
We don't like what you have to say.
That's it, we're not allowing you on air.
That's how they ban almost all progressives for
the last 40 years from being on air.
Now, do we say atrocious things like Donald Trump?
No, we say things like, hey, maybe everybody should have health care.
But to corporate media, that is considered atrocious.
And they've, quote and quote, shadow banned us all these years.
And your solution to that is, let's also ban Trump?
No, let's get everybody out there and having an actual conversation,
the people who are saying, hey, you know what?
CNN should do a progressive town hall.
Yes, it's exactly right.
You counter with more speech.
You don't go cower in a corner and go, Trump said something, so what?
You have to run against the guy.
Which leads me to one of my main points which is, why isn't Biden asking for
two town halls?
Why isn't he asking for one town hall?
Why aren't his advisors livid to CNN for not doing a town hall for him?
I'll tell you why, coz they don't wanna him out there.
Coz they think he sucks.
And so to Anna's point, when you say, I don't want Trump to convince everyone, and
I don't want Biden to talk coz he's not good at it, well, I got good news for you.
You're gonna lose.
If you have Biden as the candidate and that's your attitude,
you're definitely going to lose.
>> I mean, the Democratic Party has already determined,
on our behalf, without us having any say, that Biden is our candidate.
That's it.
No primaries, the DNC doesn't wanna hold any primary debates, and
we must support Biden.
>> No.
>> Okay, but >> No.
>> No, exactly.
Why do we have to sign on to someone?
Look, the reason why Biden won and
the tactic he used to win worked the last time.
I don't think it's gonna work this time.
Remember what his tactic was?
Just keep your profile low.
>> 100%.
>> Don't go out there, stay in the basement, and
by the way, give Trump enough rope to hang himself.
And he did.
Biden won, but that's not going to work this time around.
Because the memories of how Trump bungled the Coronavirus
pandemic is no longer fresh in the minds of all American voters.
Keep that in mind.
And the other thing is, look, if you have already served four years as President
of the United States, and most Americans have either noticed no difference in
their quality of life from that transition from Trump to Biden, that's a problem too.
>> It's a massive problem.
>> Okay, that is an indictment on the Biden administration and
the Democratic Party, okay?
This is not me saying I like Trump or, I can't wait to hear Trump speak.
This is me saying the Democratic Party is so weak and
pathetic, that they would rather suppress a message that's awful,
that I do not think is popular with the majority of American voters.
Than actually fight back against that message with
policies that are more popular and more appealing to the American people.
>> It's pathetic that we think we can't, and hence we are trying to shut Trump up.
If I was his opponent, I'd let that idiot talk all day long.
Go ahead, Mr. Verbal Diarrhea, tell us more atrocious things, and
let me use it against you with independence.
But we have total weaklings representing us in the Democratic, Trump,
he said something mean.
Well, why don't you say something back?
How about you try that?
Look, if you're wondering what my disagreement with Anna was,
she's absolutely right that the crowd makes it seem
like his ideas are really popular coz it's a totally Republican crowd.
And honestly, this is a trick both I've used and Ben Shapiro has used, and
then Shapiro used it in the debate against me, where you stack the crowd.
Once you stack the crowd, it makes a giant difference in people's perception.
On the other hand, the part I disagree is, it's a Republican town hall.
So Republican voters are gonna come.
So, you wanna do a Republican town hall with Democratic voters?
>> No, I think it would be, in my opinion, and you might disagree with this,
I thought it would be far more interesting if the audience
was stacked with undecided voters, independent voters, right?
Look, Republicans are going to support him.
That's it.
They're gonna support him, we know that.
The elections always come down to the independent voters.
>> I hear you, Anna, and that's a great point.
>> And I think their questions should be asked.
>> And totally agree.
And by the way, there's a lot of different formats.
You could just do a straight interview,
you could do one that Anna is suggesting, etc.
There's two reasons why I think it made some
sense to do it this way is because we're not in the general election.
We're in the primary section, and
there's a very healthy primary in the Republican side.
And now everybody else is getting their ass kicked, right?
But they're in there, and there's a whole bunch of them, and
DeSantis is supposed to beat them.
So if you're in a Republican primary, you talk to Republican voters.
Look guys, we didn't like how the Republican crowd reacted.
That means we learned something.
Because everybody's shocked.
I can't believe they laughed at that stuff, I can believe it.
>> So I want to show you guys an example.
So this moment definitely stood out.
This is the moment that AOC was referring to.
And to be absolutely clear, it is just one of the most atrocious
moments of featuring Donald Trump, okay?
So it was bad, but the audience's reaction is what made it even worse.
Let's watch.
>> We had this great chemistry, and a few minutes later,
we end up in a room, a dressing room, right near the cash register.
And then she found out there are locks on the door.
So she said, I found one that was open.
She found one.
She learned this at trial.
She found one that was open.
What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up and
within minutes you're playing hanky panky in a dressing room, okay?
I don't know if she was married then or not.
John Johnson, I feel sorry for you.
I feel sorry for you John Johnson.
Mr. President, can I add to this?
>> No, but think of it?
>> I know you're recounting what she said, but Mr. President
>> If I could because you asked
a question.
>> This was a drill though.
>> Just so you understand, if I was walking in at the bar because I was very
famous then, and I owned the Plaza Hotel right next to it, and I own buildings
around it, I'm not going into a dressing room of a crowded department store.
And by the way, they said she wasn't raped, okay?
That was her judge.
They said, he didn't rape her.
I didn't do anything else either.
You know what?
Coz I have no idea who the hell she is.
>> But Mr. President, can I ask >> So he's mocking her,
the crowd's laughing, it was horrible.
Obviously horrible.
Our politics happen to be horrible.
There's a portion of the country that minimizes sexual assault and
abuse of women.
And the fact that they were laughing, yeah,
it was really difficult to take that in.
But those people exist, they're part of the electorate in America.
And pretending like they don't exist or suppressing them and
hoping that it won't come back to bite you later,
I think is ridiculous and is not going to help Democrats win a damn thing.
>> Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
So it's terrible what he said, and I covered it live, and
I told you guys instantly how terrible it was, and he smeared her later, etc.
And the crowd's reaction, I said at the time, was even worse than what Trump said
because they're egging him on, and they're laughing at her nationally.
It's disgusting.
But, those are actual Republican voters.
What's really important about this is that people that are in power, people in DC,
people in the Democratic Party, people in media, they still don't get it.
That's a third of the country, a third of the country absolutely, positively thinks
like that and doesn't think there was anything wrong with last night.
They look at that clip and
they don't think there was anything wrong with that clip.
If you got your head buried in the sand and go, I don't see it, and
no one else should see it, I swear to God it's not gonna help.
We have to get up and fight back.
That's what helps.
And guys, for the Democrats that are going out there, well, Biden beat him last time.
But when Biden beat him last time,
Anna already pointed out Trump was in much worse shape, but Biden was around 50%.
Now Biden's at 36%.
That is a gigantic difference.
So anyone, I get it.
A lot of these arguments are made in good faith.
You see that disgusting display on CNN, and you get mad at CNN.
And I get it, right?
But what I'm trying to tell you is there's a more productive way to do it.
You hear an argument, well, Biden did win last time.
It sounds pretty good until you realize, well,
except he's 15 points lower this time.
And that's a monumental difference and almost guaranteed.
And he barely won last time by 43,000 votes in three states.
So it nearly guarantees a loss this time.
So we're trying to snap people out of it so
we can actually beat this monster instead of hiding in a basement.
>> I wanna get to Oliver Darcy, who is an employee of CNN's.
He put out a newsletter today, and
the newsletter indicates that there are some people working at CNN who are pretty
furious at their decision of hosting this town hall.
So he writes, CNN and new network boss Chris Licht are facing
a fury of criticism, both internally and externally over the event.
By the way, Licht totally rejects the criticism,
arguing that it's important to hear from all sides, and
that Kaitlan Collins did a masterful performance.
By the way, Kaitlan Collins, I think, did the best she could given the situation,
because Trump's not interested in a conversation.
He steamrolls, he talks over people, and that's what he did to her.
And she did a pretty good job fact checking in real time, but
Trump's a steamroller.
That's exactly what he did.
So, Brian Stelter, by the way, had a thread regarding how the new head of CNN
has reacted to the criticism, and what some of the internal criticism has been.
You do not have to like the former president's answer, but
you can't say that we didn't get them, Licht tells staffers,
many of whom are angry about the town hall.
Kaitlan pressed him again and again and made news, made a lot of news.
And that is our job.
He also says, while we all may have been uncomfortable hearing people clapping,
that was, also this is what you said, Cenk, an important part of the story.
And then he adds, because those folks represent a large swath of America, and
the media screwed up by missing that part of the story in 2015 and 2016.
And I think he's right about that, too.
It's true.
I definitely missed that in 2016, which is why Trump's win
was such a shocking event on Election Day of 2016.
>> Yeah.
So, look, I did videos saying, watch out, I think Trump's gonna win in 2016.
And I said it on ABC.
And the reason I said it is because ignoring these guys doesn't make them
go away.
We went across the country, all I saw was Trump banners.
Now, nothing in the swing states for Hillary at all.
And everybody said, don't worry, Hillary is definitely going to beat them.
They were wrong that time, they're wrong this time.
Look, I'll be honest, I wish we had a steamroller on our side.
Now, when you're a steamroller, you don't have to say terrible things.
You could say good things.
You could say, hey,
why don't we have paid family leave when 84% of America's want it?
Why can Estonia afford 82 weeks of paid family leave, we can't afford one day?
Okay, you could steamroll in a positive direction, but the Democrats don't have
any steamrollers, at least in Democratic leadership and corporate Democrats.
They're all useless.
They're like, [SOUND] >> Final thing I'm gonna say about this,
because I think this is important.
Trump was stupid enough to brag about how he's responsible for
the reversal of Roe V Wade, which is not popular.
>> Yes.
Give him enough rope to hang himself and
then have a message that is far more popular than his.
That would require Democrats to, A,
actually wanna do something to improve people's lives.
And I'm not talking about small businesses' lives, or
corporations' lives, or executives' lives.
I'm talking about ordinary people, okay?
I'm not talking about government contracts to private companies to do
infrastructure projects.
I'm talking about real material change to improve people's lives.
Give them something to vote for rather than something to vote against.
And they're unwilling to do it, right?
I mean, Biden bragging about the incredibly weak policies that he passed.
Pharmaceutical companies are already ready to go to war
to scrap the Medicare negotiations for just ten pharmaceutical drugs.
And that's one of the things that Biden likes to brag about.
>> Yeah, it's nothing.
It was a total cover-your-ass operation that helped the drug companies
actually keep 99.9% of their monopoly and our inability to negotiate prices.
Biden is just a corporate servant.
That's an overwhelming fact.
It doesn't matter how many times mainstream media lies about it.
No one's going to believe it, they don't believe it now.
You can say, Cenk, it's your fault that Biden's at 36%.
No, I got news for you, it's called personal responsibility.
>> Exactly.
>> It's Joe Biden's fault that he's at 36% and
all those enablers among the Democrats in Washington.
Hey, if you guys don't want to kick Donald Trump's ass,
why don't you move aside and let us do it?