Donald Trump is mad at Fox News for sidelining him in favor of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. New CNN CEO Chris Licht is desperate to embrace a toxic bothsidesism that surrenders any idea of searching for facts. In a match made in hell, the search for ratings and ad revenue have culminated in Licht handing Trump an opportunity to rant as he wants: a Wednesday night “town hall” from which Democratic voters and fact checkers have been excluded.
That event is now happening just one day after a New York jury found Trump liable for battery and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll trial, which has apparently done nothing to make Licht or his underlings at CNN doubt their judgment in offering Trump a very special platform.
In fact, it might not even make a difference in the evening since CNN has guaranteed that questions will come from a hall filled only with Republicans and “undecided voters.” There’s a possibility that no one will even bother to ask Trump about Carroll’s successful sexual battery and defamation case against him. That case concluded yesterday with a jury determining that Trump met Carroll outside the Bergdorf Goodman department store, asked her to help him select some lingerie for a gift, pulled her into a dressing room, slammed the door, pressed her up against the wall, and sexually assaulted her. And then he lied about the event, demeaned Carroll repeatedly, and insulted her on both social media and national TV for years.
It hasn’t actually been determined if Donald Trump could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without shaking any of his MAGA faithful, but it seems clear that he can assault a woman in a dressing room. As NBC News reports, “good Christian” Mike Pence doesn’t think Trump will pay any price with his voters for that little sexual battery thing. In fact, Pence wonders why this is even a story.
“It’s just one more instance where,” said Pence, “at a time when American families are struggling, when our economy is hurting, when the world seems to become a more dangerous place almost every day [there's] just one more story focusing on my former running mate that I know is a great fascination to members of the national media, but I just don’t think is where the American people are focused.”
Yes. Why should the American people care if the guy who tried to get Pence killed also happens to be a sexual abuser? When can the media get back to lying about the price of eggs and making people even more afraid of immigrants?
As NPR reports, Licht is in full agreement with Pence because:
In his first year on the job, chairman and CEO Chris Licht has sought to put his mark on the network by draining it of the relentless criticism of Trump in response to the crises and controversies that defined his administration.
Just a brief reminder that the four years in which Trump occupied the White House consisted of nothing but crises and controversies. From a Republican-led Senate finding that Trump’s campaign had over 100 contacts with Russian agents to his departure following the insurgency on Jan. 6, every day of Trump in Washington was filled with Trump declaring that he wouldn’t defend NATO partners, calling American veterans who died in World War II “losers,” trying to blackmail Ukraine into lying about his political opponent, and little things like an Environmental Protection Agency administrator who conducted his business in a “cone of silence” and an Interior secretary who made a disaster so much worse. And to top it off, there were a million people dying in a pandemic while Trump encouraged people to take a medicine for deworming horses, and an economic collapse that resulted in millions losing their jobs.
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Any network that refused to talk about these things would be … Fox News, which seems to be just where Licht wants to steer CNN. As Fox tries to get out from under Trump, it seems like Licht is anxious to crawl under him. In spite of loud protestations about “neutrality” and the importance of hearing multiple voices on every issue, the number of candidates CNN has approached with opportunities like the one Trump is getting on Wednesday night is exactly one.
According to CNN Political Director David Chalian, the network considers Trump a “unique candidate," citing that he’s the first former resident of the White House to lose and then try to make a comeback in more than a century, so they’re giving him a very special evening to make his case.
Except that circumstance is exactly why all this is so ridiculous. No one has had more airtime than Trump. No one in history. The American people don’t have any question about who Trump is or what he stands for. Trump has answered those questions. No one needs a meet-and-greet with Donald Trump.
Of course, CNN knows that. They know exactly what they’re getting.
Trump is going to lie about the 2020 election and make false claims about everyone from Biden to election workers. These claims have been not just debunked in public but dismissed in court. He’s going to lie about his 34-count indictment in New York while attacking the Manhattan district attorney, the members of the grand jury, and his own former attorney.
Should any of his adoring fans holding the town hall microphone lob him a softball about the woman who dared accuse him—coiner of the phrase “grab ’em by the pussy”—of rape, and the darned New York jury that found him responsible, Trump will lie about that, too.
Will host Kaitlan Collins do anything about Trump’s lies? That seems doubtful. With no other candidates to repudiate Trump’s statements and a roomful of supporters to shout down any less-than-worshipful words, the event seems tailor made to simply let Trump do Trump.
Which is exactly what Licht wants. Despite saying that he’s all about hearing from "both sides," he has arranged an event for just one voice—the voice of the man who dragged a woman into a dressing room, sexually assaulted her, then dismissed her as too ugly to be worthy of his attention. This isn’t Trump coming onto America’s televisions to apologize or heal. He’s only there to do what he always does–make things worse.
The problem with the media is not, and never was, too much effort being placed on finding the truth. It was, and is, too much willingness to provide a platform for lies.
CNN is showing just how bad the media can be when it really works at it.
The data is in: Americans don’t like Republican policies on abortion. Kerry is joined by Drew Linzer, the director and co-founder of the well-regarded polling company Civiqs. Drew and Kerry do a deep dive into the polling around abortion and reproductive rights and the big problems conservative candidates face in the coming elections.