MSNBC Ridicules ‘Rookie’ Trump Town Hall Host Kaitlan Collins: ‘Wasn’t Good Enough’
MSNBC tore into CNN host Kaitlan Collins over her performance in CNN’s controversial town hall with former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, calling Collins a “rookie” and accusing her of not adequately preparing for the interview.
During MSNBC’s The ReidOut on Thursday, the network aired the banner, “CNN pits rookie ‘moderator’ against Trump & his fans.”
Host Joy Reid, who described Trump’s appearance on CNN’s town hall as “blatant fascism meets The Jerry Springer Show,” went on to criticize CNN’s event, while Reid’s fellow MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan took aim specifically at Collins.
“It’s so depressing. I was one of those people who went into last night thinking this is going to be bad, but it was worse than even I thought,” said Hasan. “I thought CNN would have some kind of plan for the night.”
“You and I, Joy, we work in cable news, we work in television,” he continued. “If we had an interview like that, we would sit with our team, we’d say I’m going to do this, they’ll do that, what if this happens, what if this happens, have we got a plan… There was nothing.”
Hasan criticized people for saying “Poor Kaitlan Collins, she tried her best,” and said that while he had “great respect” for the CNN host, “last night, it just wasn’t good enough”:
If you’re going up with Trump at 9, you know, 8 o’clock, prime time television, the biggest interview of your life… Where was the prep? Why go in, as you say, with that question? Why were you not prepared for his lies? We knew what Trump would do. This is not 2016. We haven’t gone back in time in a time machine. There’s no excuse for not knowing that Trump’s going to steamroll you, that Trump’s going to verbally abuse you. When he said, “You’re a nasty person,” it was almost like, tick. I was waiting for that. There was no way he was going to go through the night without insulting her. There was no way he wasn’t going to mock E. Jean Carroll. There was no way he wasn’t going to say “rigged election” again and again.
“At one point she says to him, ‘It wasn’t a rigged election. You can’t keep saying that all night long.’ Yes, he can! And he did!” Hasan protested. “And CNN helped him, and you had no plan for it.”
Reid then claimed, “CNN wants desperately to be the new home for Republican viewers. They want to be the new Fox. They want to move to the right,” which prompted guest and former RNC chair Michael Steele to say, “Yes, that’s part of Licht’s agenda,” in reference to CNN CEO Chris Licht.
“It’s clear that the goal is to make it a friendly place for MAGA. That’s very clear,” Reid argued, before noting that Collins previously worked as a White House correspondent for the Daily Caller.
“Let’s remember she comes from the Daily Caller. She comes from a conservative outlet that Tucker Carlson used to own, so she’s not a liberal,” Reid claimed.
Steele responded, “Exactly. She was on Fox’s air a lot of times sort of spewing that same pablum.”
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace also criticized CNN’s decision to host the Trump town hall on Thursday, as did MSNBC’s Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough, who called it “disgraceful.”
Following the event, former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly made similar comments criticizing the interviewing tactics of Collins, who he called a “young woman with not a lot of experience.”
CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy reported on Wednesday that the network and its CEO were “facing a fury of criticism” within the company over the town hall.
“Kaitlan Collins exemplified what it means to be a world-class journalist,” said a CNN spokesperson in a statement to Mediaite. “She asked tough, fair and revealing questions. And she followed up and fact-checked President Trump in real time to arm voters with crucial information about his positions as he enters the 2024 election as the Republican frontrunner. That is CNN’s role and responsibility: to get answers and hold the powerful to account.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
