Fox’s Howard Kurtz Pans CNN’s ‘Unwatchable’ Trump Town Hall Moderated by Kaitlan Collins: ‘She’s Not There to Debate Him’
Fox News’ Howard Kurtz denounced the “circus atmosphere” that enveloped Donald Trump’s CNN town hall with Kaitlan Collins.
Kurtz started MediaBuzz off on Sunday by showing Collins in several intense back-and-forths with Trump over his lies about January 6th and the 2020 election. Kurtz brought Robby Soave and Ameshia Cross on to discuss a town hall which he called “unwatchable at times.” He asked his panelists, “Did CNN underestimate the challenge of fact-checking Donald Trump in real time as he steamrolled Kaitlan Collins — a sharp and poised but relatively young journalist?”
Soave acknowledged criticisms of the town hall’s format, since it led to audience cheering on Trump’s counteroffensive against Collins’ fact-checks and hard questions. Kurtz went on to ask, “what did CNN expect?”
Cross said Collins “did the best she could with the hand that she was dealt…but she lost control of that room very, very quickly” when faced with Trump’s torrent of lies and attacks on his foes. When Kurtz took the wheel again, he spotlighted the moment when Trump refused to apologize to Mike Pence over the events of January 6th “because he did something wrong.”
“The ‘wrong’ thing is that he didn’t overturn the results of the Electoral College,” Kurtz said in rebuttal. He then offered his assessment of Collins, saying she “was in a tough position, but she’s not there to debate him. But it looked that way, especially with the crowd, the pro-Trump crowd, you know, hooting and hollering whenever he made a point that they liked.”
Kurtz said CNN has been “really feeling the backlash,” given Anderson Cooper’s widely-criticized defense of the town hall. He got back to Collins later by remarking on the “kind-of circus atmosphere” she presided over when the audience cheered Trump lashing out at E. Jean Carroll, whom the ex-president was just found to have sexually abused by a Manhattan jury.
CNN has defended the event, with a network spokesperson saying, “Kaitlan Collins exemplified what it means to be a world-class journalist. 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 Fox News.
