‘About Last Night’: Kaitlin Collins Addresses Controversial CNN Trump Town Hall

CNN host Kaitlan Collins defended her town hall with former President Donald Trump after the event sparked controversy and reportedly led to backlash within the network.

“Good evening and thanks for joining me. About last night…” opened Collins on CNN Primetime, Thursday evening. “The seventy minutes that I spent on stage in New Hampshire with former President Donald Trump was a major inflection point in the Republican Party’s search for its nominee, and potentially the starting line for America’s next presidential race.”

It’s important to remember that he is right now the GOP frontrunner. A race that he is running, as noted, while being criminally indicted, found civilly liable, and under investigation for everything from his handling of classified documents to his business empire. Also notable is the Republican reaction on Capitol Hill today to someone who could easily once again become their party’s nominee.

CNN then aired several short interviews with Republican officials, including Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), who criticized Trump’s performance and remarks during the town hall.

Young told CNN that he did not intend to support Trump in the Republican primary, while Romney said, “I think people saw last night what they would get with another term of Donald Trump as president, which is a completely untethered to the truth…”

Collins concluded, “Maybe most telling, though, was how Trump spent most of those seventy minutes defending himself, that he was hardly focussed on the current occupant of the Oval Office, President Joe Biden, even as Trump’s advisers have privately urged him to look ahead instead of backward.”

CNN’s town hall on Wednesday sparked heavy backlash from liberals, including several hosts at MSNBC.

“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 MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan following CNN’s town hall. “I thought CNN would have some kind of plan for the night.”

“Where was the prep?” questioned Hasan, who said that while he had “great respect” for Collins, “last night, it just wasn’t good enough.”

CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy reported in his Reliable Sources newsletter on Wednesday that CNN was “facing a fury of criticism” from both outside and within the company over its decision to interview Trump live.

Watch above via CNN.

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