CNN's Kaitlan Collins Becomes New Target of The Political Right
Other journalists and TV hosts were less harsh in their appraisals, however
CNN host Kaitlan Collins has become a fresh target for those on the political right in the United States in the 24 hours or so since she moderated the cable news network's prime-time “town hall” forum with Donald Trump.
However, her TV and journalism colleagues were typically less harsh in their views of the difficult job she had fact-checking the former president in real-time during the Wednesday evening encounter.
Once more running for president, and the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Trump used his appearance on CNN to repeat his litany of lies and falsehoods while Collins gamely — but often ineffectively — tried to steer the former president back towards issues and facts.
Trump, at one point, even personally insulted Collins, calling her “nasty,” when she asked Trump to answer a direct question.
But her efforts, however, won her no friends among Trump's right-wing supporters, with a number of prominent figures from the right training rhetorical fire on Collins since the town hall in New Hampshire wrapped up.
The “best part” of CNN's Trump event was when Trump called Collins “nasty,” Fox News personality Jesse Watters said on-camera.
Republican politician and election denier Kari Lake claimed Trump was “very kind” to Collins and “held his fire” during CNN’s town hall on Wednesday.
“It would have been nice to have a fair moderator who actually wanted to impart the viewers and the voters with information,” said Lake, during an appearance on former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s podcast on Thursday.
Former Trump White House advisor Kellyanne Conway also panned Collins' work as moderator.
“Kaitlan Collins is a smart woman, she's better than most reporters, that’s for sure, including at CNN, but she was not clever or nimble last night,” she said. “These were predictable questions. We didn’t really learn anything new from the questions because they did not ask anything new. This was to try to nail [Trump] much the way they did in 2016 when he was running, when I was out there seven or eight times on his behalf.”
Rep. Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican and Trump supporter, accused Collins of grandstanding during the town hall.
“I mean, look, personally, I think it was her own Super Bowl. I mean, look, Kaitlan has been doing this a long time. I’ve done interviews with her on that network and I think that this was her time in the spotlight being opposite the number one guy in our party, being Donald Trump,” he said. “So, I think that’s part of it. Number two, it was clear that CNN’s position was to do anything they could to keep bringing up all of the old stuff, all of the narratives they continue to push, and to ignore the realities of what is happening in America today.”
Collins’ colleagues in the media were often less harsh in their appraisals of her work during the Trump encounter.
“CNN put out a statement that the moderator did a great job. Let me give you a clue into this business. When you’re explaining, it is perceived as weakness. And as I told you last night, I don’t think it was necessary. I don’t think Kaitlan Collins needed any explanation,” said Chris Cuomo, himself a former CNN host who now has an evening TV program on another network. “I know she’s good at what she does and I thought she did the job that she had to do, and it was not an easy one.
“And a lot of the people who are coming after her in the media are people who couldn’t do that job, and when they had a chance to do their job, didn’t do it that well,” Cuomo added. “So, there there’s a lot of player-hating in my business, but that’s petty. There’s a bigger situation here, okay? And it is, what do we do with ideas that we don’t like? What happened to us beating them with better ideas? And where is the line in terms of what you give a platform to, which I see as another word for censorship. So, let’s debate, okay?"
MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan, however, was somewhat more critical of Collins’ efforts with Trump.
“I mean, people are saying today, ‘Kaitlan Collins, poor Kaitlan Collins, she tried her best.’ And with great respect to Kaitlan Collins, I’m a great admirer of Kaitlan Collins’ interviews previously, she did very well when she was in the White House briefing room holding Trump to account, she did a very good interview recently with [Republican Sen] Rick Scott, but last night it just wasn’t good enough,” Hasan said. “If you’re going up with Trump at 8:00, prime time television, the biggest interview of your life, where was the prep?
“Why go in, as you say, with that question? Why were you not prepared for his lies? We knew what Trump would do. This is not 2016,” Hasan added. “We haven’t gone back in time in a time machine. There’s no excuse for not knowing that Trump is going to steamroll you, that Trump is going to verbally abuse you.
“When he said, ‘You’re a nasty person,’ it was almost like, ‘Tick!’ I was waiting for that,” he said. “There was no way he was going to go through the night without insulting her, there was no way he wasn’t going to mock E. Jean Carroll, there was no way he wasn’t going to say ‘rigged election’ again and again. At one point she says to him, ‘It wasn’t a rigged election. You can’t keep saying that all night long.’ Yes, he can, and he did. And CNN helped him! You have no plan for it.”
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