Trump’s Return to CNN is a High-Wire Act for Kaitlan Collins and a Potential Big Win for Chris Licht
Former President Donald Trump is returning to CNN for a town hall this month, taking questions from rising network star Kaitlan Collins.
According to a press release, the May 10 event will be held before a live audience of New Hampshire Republicans and undeclared voters who intend to vote in the state’s Republican presidential primary.
It is the first time Trump will appear on this particular cable network, which he regularly derides as “Fake News CNN,” in seven years.
Presidential frontrunners agree to appear on cable news networks all the time, and in any other timeline, this would be unremarkable news. But this is a significant and precarious moment for all players involved. Let’s take them one by one.
It’s not abundantly clear what exactly Trump gets from this apart from the obvious — airtime that he constantly craves. It’s unclear how a president whose first term ended with him fueling a deadly riot a the U.S. Capitol over his absurd claims of a stolen election is going to appeal to the moderates who make up CNN’s audience.
Can he show the sort of discipline and avoid the conspiratorial trash-talking and aggrieved bluster that turns off so many of those voters? It doesn’t really matter — with Trump more than any public figure on the planet, the cake is baked.
If we are to credit Trump or his advisers with any savvy thinking here, we would say he could be sending a message to his 2024 rivals — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in particular — that he isn’t afraid of wading into unfriendly territory. DeSantis, we should note, refuses to step outside the safety of the conservative media bubble.
Next up? Kaitlan Collins, the co-host of CNN This Morning, the network’s turbulent new breakfast program. That show isn’t the reason why Collins was tapped to handle this town hall, however. She excelled as a White House reporter covering Trump’s White House, and has emerged as a network fave since moving to New York. She hosted a week of 9 p.m. prime time shows, in a run seen internally as a success, and is regularly featured across the network because of her excellent reporting.
Collins will have to very delicately thread a needle between challenging Trump on his conspiratorial bullshit and moderating a town hall discussion that avoids a trainwreck.
Interviewing a controversial and polarizing character is an almost impossible job: no matter how tough you are on the subject, some critics will say you gave that person a pass. Conversely, being too tough on a subject can torpedo an interview if done without enough discipline.
Collins is sharp and tough as nails. She has a reputation for asking tough questions and knows Trump like the back of her hand. Expect her to handle this well — or as well as anyone can handle the most unpredictable man in politics.
The biggest potential winner here is CNN CEO Chris Licht, who is working to remake the network he took over a year ago. Licht has worked tirelessly to move CNN away from the partisan theatrics it became known for under Jeff Zucker. That posture — in which CNN is pitched as a reputational asset to its parent company — will certainly be put to the test with this town hall.
In the first months of the Licht era, I wrote that getting Republican officials back on CNN for interviews was of utmost importance to the network’s effort to rehabilitate its image as a serious news network.
Landing Trump for a town hall is certainly a big deal for the network that hasn’t had the former president on air since the 2016 campaign. Like it or not, Trump remains the most powerful person in the Republican Party. Critics would no doubt argue that CNN not mention his name for the rest of time. But that makes the mistake of assuming Trump gets his power from CNN. He does not. In fact, there are few better ways to handle Trump than putting him on air, live, for questioning from one of the toughest interviewers on your roster.
Yes, the Trump Town Hall on CNN could be a magnificent disaster. There is a decent chance Trump could attempt to steamroll Collins, spew a fountain of lies, and lob personal insults. And if so? That will be more revealing of Trump’s character than CNN simply sticking its head in the sand.
Fortune favors the bold, and both Trump and CNN could use a little fortune at the moment.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
