CNN Trump Town Hall Winners: His Election Opponents and Federal Prosecutors - Horowitz

CNN Trump Town Hall Winners: His Election Opponents and Federal Prosecutors - Horowitz

Contrary to the overheated and, in some cases, nearly hysterical reactions to CNN’s town hall featuring the former president, Donald Trump did not help himself with his falsehood-ridden and backward-looking performance. In fact, the prime beneficiaries were the other presidential candidates and federal prosecutors for whom Mr. Trump served up soundbites for negative ads that just about write themselves and legal admissions that came perilously close to outright confessions.

 

The people that seem most upset about CNN’s decision to hold the Town Hall as well as the manner it was conducted are fighting the last war—or perhaps even the war before that. It is not 2016, when the outsized television exposure Mr. Trump received--particularly in the lead up to the Republican primaries and during the nomination contest itself-- was a key factor to his vaulting over more established opponents.  He was a new political commodity then and was able to introduce himself to the Republican primary electorate and the nation as a whole in an unfiltered way, garnering many more times the amount of television coverage than any of his primary opponents.

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Americans have now experienced 7 years of Mr. Trump as a politician, including 4 years where he served as president.  A substantial majority of Americans have a strongly negative view of the former president and an even higher percentage find him untruthful.  Performances like the one at the Town Hall, where he doubles down on spewing falsehoods about the 2020 election, continuing to claim he won it, calls January 6 “a beautiful day,” viciously insults the woman he was just found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming to the tune of $5 million, and refuses to choose sides between Ukraine and Russia, harm-- not help-- his candidacy.  These kinds of performances remind independent and moderate general election voters of why they abandoned him in 2020 and further convince them that he is not an acceptable option in 2024, no matter how dissatisfied they may be with the incumbent.

 

Even for the Republican primary electorate, Mr. Trump’s performance was a net negative. For the majority of Republican primary voters who remain open to moving on from Mr. Trump and supporting one of his primary opponents, his continuing to harp on the 2020 election, even if they may agree with him on it, and his celebration of January 6, along with his failure to focus on the future were reminders of why they are considering a different choice.

 

Mr. Trump also provided a feast for the special counsel Jack Smith and his team of federal prosecutors. His answers to Kaitlan Collins' questions on his mishandling of federal documents and on his take on January 6 were not only ill-advised politically; they were dangerous legally. As a number of legal experts noted, he particularly added to his already high legal jeopardy in the documents case, declaring, along with other gems, “I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified.” (There is no automatic declassification process, despite his false claim.)

 

Just because Mr. Trump didn’t benefit, of course, does not mean that all of the criticism of CNN’s handling of the town hall was misplaced.  When one considers that the format was a town hall, not a one-on-one interview, however, the harsh criticism of Collins was unfair. She did push back on his most important falsehoods and did so with sufficient effectiveness for all those watching on television, except for the hard-core Trump supporters who are not open to persuasion. Further, in a town hall format, by definition, the bulk of the time needs to be reserved for audience questions. Where CNN is subject to fair criticism was in its decision to allow the live audience to be stacked with Trump supporters.

 

The critics were the most off base when arguing that Mr. Trump should not be provided with any media platform at all.  As the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, it is part of the news media’s job to cover him, including interviewing him and providing him with formats such as town halls. Assuming he somehow escapes the long arm of the law, it is up to voters, not media outlets to determine whether or not he will return to the White House. The test for CNN and other outlets going forward is do they provide the same opportunities to the other major Republican candidates for president, despite the fact they are unlikely to get the same kind of ratings bump. 

 

For those of us who view the prospect of another Trump term as truly frightening and an existential threat to our democracy, it is important to remember that since his victory in 2016, the more the media spotlight focuses on Mr. Trump, the worse he does politically. If his performance in the CNN town hall is indicative, that basic equation is unlikely to change.