CNN gambled on Trump interview, and lost
What to make of the predictable hour-long rant from former president Donald J. Trump?
The event was the so-called “town hall” that CNN held on Wednesday night, and the first meaningful media event of the 2024 US election cycle. It was also significantly the first time Donald Trump had appeared on the network in about seven years. Things have changed substantially since back then. A pandemic has been and gone, Capitol Hill has been rioted, and Trump has lost an election. CNN has also experienced change, with Chris Licht becoming its CEO and bringing with him a new determination to make the network more attractive to Republicans who had previously deserted the channel.
Trump’s appearance was meant to be both good for Trump and (in theory) good for CNN, but only if you weren’t one of those who believe that US networks should not give airtime to Trump. It was just a few years since it was common wisdom that the mistakes of 2016 would not be allowed to happen again. Networks had stopped carrying Trump rallies and introduced new fact-checking mechanisms to combat the steady stream of lies and falsehoods.
But, of course, nothing is ever that settled in the constantly moving news cycle and so Trump came out to yet another primetime audience on one of the major news networks. And in truth, it was a helpful gauge of Trump’s appeal, even if it was a less helpful measure of how a rebalanced CNN is going to negotiate Trump’s post-fact world.
Trump walked out to an audience carefully picked to represent New Hampshire’s Republican voters, which meant it told us nothing about who will be the next President. Sensible money should still be on Biden despite a recent ABC/Washington Post poll which gave Trump a seven-point lead. (Reasons to discount that poll: it’s probably an outlier; Biden hasn’t started to campaign; America hasn’t yet been exposed to two years of constant Trump). What the town hall did do is underscore how much of a tight grip Trump retains on the Republican nomination. If I were Ron DeSantis today, I’d be eying the money in my campaign fund and wonder if I’d want to blow it this time on this election against this former president.
Trump is a salesman and knows not to start meddling with the ingredients of a popular product. He emerged dressed in his usual blue suit and long red tie. He initially looked like he struggled to climb up onto the tall stool that CNN had provided (Trump has noticeably aged in the past two years), and, when he did mount the stool, it left him slouching forward, his tie comically protruding from beneath the bottom of his jacket. After the only break in the town hall, the show returned with Trump standing alongside CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. Trump is still aware of his image and knows what works and what doesn’t.
Trump also remains firmly committed to being Donald Trump. All the usual hot-button topics were pressed during the hour. He continues to claim that he built The Wall, that he would solve the Ukraine/Russian War on Day One of his second term, and that the 2020 election was stolen. Though Collins did an outstanding job in rebuffing his claims, he always chose to double down rather than admit even a scintilla of doubt. At one point he even took credit for the Supreme Court overturning Roe vs Wade, which is a bold approach and certainly hands the Biden campaign team a very big stick with which to beat the former President.
What is worth reporting, however, is the reaction of the audience to Trump. This week it has been widely speculated that Tuesday’s verdict in the E. Jean Carroll trial would put an end to his candidacy. It clearly won’t (and I’ve been arguing for a while that it was unlikely that even a full-blown rape conviction would change the minds of his base). So it proved… The audience in New Hampshire merely laughed as the former president mocked the verdict, insulted the judge, and then proceeded to make some of the same allegations against Carroll that led to him being slapped with paying her a $5 million award. If Carroll’s lawyers want to draw more cash from the former President’s deep pockets, they might want to ask a jury to decide if Carroll is indeed the “whack job” that Trump claims she is.
It was profoundly shocking – though not actually that surprising – to hear the whooping and laughter that accompanied Trump’s denials. Cheers too when he called Collins “a horrible person” for simply doing her job and asking him some challenging questions. The audience knows what they like about Trump and a conviction for sexual assault plays into that appeal. It also reminds us that Trump proudly boasted that “I could shoot somebody and not lose any voters”. That’s obviously not true (and logically wouldn’t be true if the person he shot voted Republican) but it’s clear that Trump’s appeal continues to remain rooted in his misbehaviour and unwillingness to play nice.
When the hour was over it had been a good night for Trump and a bad night for CNN. They knew what was coming but offered no effective counter. Kaitlan Collins did an admirable job in trying to push back, but it’s impossible when Trump is in steamroller mode. The 2024 election will be different to 2020 but, based on last night, the differences will be counted in wrinkles, not facts.
@DavidWaywell
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