CNN’s Poppy Harlow Bristles at Pro-Trump Analyst For CNN/Fox News Analogy — Praises Objectivity of Kaitlan Collins
CNN anchor Poppy Harlow bristled when pro-Trump analyst David Urban analogized the Trump town hall with a hypothetical Fox News event for President Joe Biden, and praised the objectivity of moderator Kaitlan Collins.
Collins moderated a CNN town hall with ex-President Donald Trump at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire Wednesday night, which quickly devolved into a chaotic spectacle that had Collins rushing to correct Trump as best she could and fighting through a blizzard of Trump patter and abuse. The event has since sparked a barrage of criticism and recriminations at the network.
On Thursday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, co-anchors Harlow and Phil Mattingly discussed the event with a panel of CNN talent consisting of Urban, Maggie Haberman, and Van Jones.
Haberman praised Collins for making news and getting Trump to say “a lot of things that we have not heard him talk about,” while Jones likened her to “a matador against the biggest bull in American history” who “put a lot of knives in.”
Then Urban ran afoul of Harlow by making an analogy that she felt posed CNN and Collins as equivalent to Fox News and its antagonism toward Biden:
MAGGIE HABERMAN: This was a forum where Kaitlan got a lot of news made. A lot. A lot of things that we have not heard him talk about. A lot of issues that he has not been pushed because when people are traveling aboard his plane or he’s going to a rally, it’s something very different. And so how it all plays for his team, and they’re feeling good that they’re getting cheers, is very different than what it might play out.
VAN JONES: Kaitlan was like a matador against the biggest bull in American history. And I think she put a lot of knives in that are going to pay off later on in terms of getting him to say stuff that he had not actually said on the record before, I think that’s very important.
DAVID URBAN: Yeah, but with Maggie’s point, you know, election Republicans got what they needed out of this Trump got what he that’s he’s tough, pugilistic. People like the base likes to see that. He’s in there mixing up with the media again. Not a friendly environment for Donald Trump to come back to CNN. Y’know I kind of joked that you would never see Joe Biden wading into Fox News, a debate…
POPPY HARLOW: I don’t think that’s a fair comparison.
DAVID URBAN: CNN is not, my point is…
POPPY HARLOW: So let’s not make it!
DAVID URBAN: It’s not an unfriendly… Unfriendly…
VAN JONES: Oh, that was a friendly audience, buddy!
POPPY HARLOW: I also think you can’t get a more objective journalist and interviewer than Kaitlan Collins.
DAVID URBAN: Oh, no, no, I’m not. I’m just saying, everybody, I agree. I’m not. I’m. I’m just. Kaitlan did a great job. I’m just saying that Biden is not going to, he’s not going to stand up and do that. I would love to see him take questions…
MAGGIE HABERMAN: But with whom? Sean Hannity?
Watch above via CNN This Morning.
