CNN is going to host a town hall broadcast with former President Donald Trump on Wednesday.
You may think the network should, you may think it shouldn’t. It doesn’t matter — it’s going to happen.
Whether you should watch is another question altogether.
There are compelling reasons to argue both ways. On the one hand, Trump is a viable candidate for president in 2024, leading all Republicans in polls with no particularly serious challengers at the moment. (Sorry, Ron DeSantis. Looks like you’ve got your hands tied by Mickey Mouse battles. Literally.)
You can’t just ignore a candidate and pretend he doesn’t exist. And questions from the audience might offer a glimpse into what Republican voters are looking for in 2024.
On the other hand, Trump continues to falsely claim that he won the 2020 election, insisting it was rigged despite no credible evidence of it. He downplays the Jan. 6 insurrection that he helped inspire. He’s been indicted on 34 felony counts by a New York grand jury. He routinely lies about all kinds of things in his rallies.
I’d vote a qualified yes, air it. But boy, it could go way south at any minute. Keep the remote handy.
When is the Donald Trump town hall on CNN?
The town hall takes place at 8 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, May 10 at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire on CNN.
Kaitlan Collins will moderate and ask questions. If she calls out Trump — and those asking questions in the audience — on lies and misinformation, it could be a chance to get Trump on the record on a legitimate news network that is willing to push back.
Trump hasn’t allowed CNN to interview him since 2016. But he hasn’t just ignored the network. He’s spent the intervening years disparaging CNN as fake news and an enemy of the people. If a kid repeatedly punched you in the face on the playground, why would you invite him to your birthday party?
Ratings is the easy answer, but it’s not the complete one. Certainly there will be a big audience for the town hall.
CNN is a different network than the one that used to train cameras on an empty microphone in 2015, waiting for Trump to arrive at a rally, eager to broadcast everything he said, no matter how false or threatening it was. Trump doubtless appreciated the free publicity. But he raged at CNN when it dared report on anything he thought portrayed him in an unfavorable light, which was basically anything short of hagiography.
Chris Licht, now CNN’s chairman and CEO, has made well-publicized efforts to bring the network back to the middle of the road politically, in part by booking more Republican and conservative voices on shows.
Now he has landed the biggest Republican voice. And possibly the most dishonest one.
Trump has nothing to lose. CNN on the other hand…
The network is trying to play it off as just another day at the office. “CNN has a longstanding tradition of hosting leading presidential candidates for Town Halls and political events as a critical component of the network’s robust campaign coverage,” it said in a statement. “This event with former President Trump will be the first of many for CNN in the coming months.”
Yes, I’m sure people are already lining up for the big Asa Hutchinson town hall.
There’s no question that Trump has the upper hand, holding the media over a barrel — for the precise reasons spelled out above. You can’t ignore him if he’s the leading candidate, not exactly. But you can’t amplify his lies and threats. And with Trump, and how much of what he says is filled with those things, how is that possible without ignoring him completely?
Trump has nothing to lose here. CNN does.
If Trump or his supporters simply drown out Collins’ pushback with boos and shouting — and she was a White House correspondent during Trump’s term, so there’s no reason to think she won’t be tough — then all is lost. It becomes a free-for-all, something more akin to professional wrestling than a legitimate news event.
Trump will look like a hero to his supporters, standing up to the big bad fake news or whatever.
It is possible, however, for CNN to make this worthwhile.
CNN should learn from Kyung Lah’s interview with Kari Lake
In October of 2021, CNN’s Kyung Lah interviewed Kari Lake, who was then vying for the Republican nomination for Arizona governor. In a taped introduction, Lah called Lake a “proud spreader of lies about the 2020 election results.”
Lah, armed with facts, then challenged Lake’s lies in the interview, and Lake simply started claiming that Lah was “buying everything they say.”
Lake looked ridiculous.
If Collins is similarly prepared and tenacious, it could work out all right. Though anytime Trump is involved, anything is possible. And that’s the danger.
If things get really out of hand, the last episode of “Succession” was good and it’s just sitting there on HBO Max.
How to watch the CNN town hall with Donald Trump
8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific, Wednesday, May 10 on CNN.
Bill Goodykoontz is media critic at the Arizona Republic, a member of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.