`A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Don’t Blame Kaitlan Collins The CNN “town hall” with Trump in New Hampshire was at least as bad as expected for all the reasons…
Scout is Frist this morning!
She says Dr. Cadet Toadglans mit der Bone Spurs von Queens defamed E. Jean Carroll anew last night. “Sue him again! SUE HIM AGAIN!” she wailed.
Full disclosure: Scout is not a lawyer.
“fundamental misunderstanding”
I feel like this phrase lets everyone off the hook. There is no misunderstanding. Trump gets eyeballs and clicks and those mean money.
The answer is…
“WHAT IS A SHIT-SHOW ?”
Trump being an insurrectionist makes CNN an enabler.
What’s the fallout for Collins? Will she be viewed as someone victimized by Trump and CNN, or does she take the fall for the debacle?
My cynical guess is that her career is damaged. CNN honchos will look for a scapegoat, and the rest of us will always think of this disaster whenever she appears on screen.
I know that I said that I would, but I did not watch last night.
Though I believe that @castor_troy suffered through it for the rest of us, and I believe that he’s angry enough for all of us.
We know that FoxNews doesn’t have a shred of journalistic integrity, and CNN wants in on the game – for profit.
Haven’t watched “Morning Joe” regularly in years, except when I’m staying someplace with cable, and, frankly, feel Joe, et. al, are responsible for normalizing and elevating tRump into some kind of “political pundit”, setting up his Political career. He is right sometimes:
Joe Scarborough seemed shocked by the behavior of former President Donald Trump and his supporters during CNN’s Town Hall, Wednesday night, calling it as “chilling” as January 6th.
…
“> I’m constantly telling people not to catastrophize over Trump that he’s actually going to lose because he keeps drilling down deeper and deeper into his base, he said before using his own “catastrophizing language.”
“It was disgraceful on every level,” he added before warning how “It showed I wouldn’t say it’s dangerous for democracy because we passed that a long time ago — but it showed the corrosive effects of Trumpism over eight years.”
He then listed the specifics of what he saw that appalled him:
The most shocking part was an audience who cheered on a president who tried to overturn American democracy, an audience that mocked and ridicule the woman who a jury of her peers, Donald Trump’s peers, found had been sexually assaulted. Those Americans, their last night turned that into a punchline, laughed and dismissed. Cops getting the shit kicked out of them. On January the sixth. Beaten up over and over again, calling a cop a thug who actually was trying to stop people from the House floor from being killed. I could go. I just could go on and on, basically saying he would turn over Ukraine to Vladimir Putin.
“You can go piece by piece by piece to talk about how breathtakingly dangerous what we saw was last night,” the Morning Joe continued. “This this virus of lies that’s been loosened on the American people.”
“But what we saw tonight was it was a propagandist, and it was a propaganda spewing lies repeatedly, over and over and over and over and over again, and an audience, an American audience lapping it up. This isn’t Putin’s Russia. This is Trump’s slice of America,” he concluded. “And what I saw last night, at least, was as chilling as anything I’ve seen on television since January 6th.”
CNN can eat shit for all time. Never, ever punching 202 into my remote again.
Very worth revisiting.
From after Trump’s election: Nov. 10. 2016.
Autocracy: Rules for Survival
Of course, the United States has much stronger institutions than Germany did in the 1930s, or Russia does today. Both Clinton and Obama in their speeches stressed the importance and strength of these institutions. The problem, however, is that many of these institutions are enshrined in political culture rather than in law, and all of them—including the ones enshrined in law—depend on the good faith of all actors to fulfill their purpose and uphold the Constitution.
The national press is likely to be among the first institutional victims of Trumpism. There is no law that requires the presidential administration to hold daily briefings, none that guarantees media access to the White House. Many journalists may soon face a dilemma long familiar to those of us who have worked under autocracies: fall in line or forfeit access. There is no good solution (even if there is a right answer), for journalism is difficult and sometimes impossible without access to information.
The power of the investigative press—whose adherence to fact has already been severely challenged by the conspiracy- minded, lie-spinning Trump campaign—will grow weaker. The world will grow murkier. Even in the unlikely event that some mainstream media outlets decide to declare themselves in opposition to the current government, or even simply to report its abuses and failings, the president will get to frame many issues. Coverage, and thinking, will drift in a Trumpian direction, just as it did during the campaign—when, for example, the candidates argued, in essence, whether Muslim Americans bear collective responsibility for acts of terrorism or can redeem themselves by becoming the “eyes and ears” of law enforcement. Thus was xenophobia further normalized, paving the way for Trump to make good on his promises to track American Muslims and ban Muslims from entering the United States.
Was it a debacle, or was it a win for CNN in the cable ratings game? The network is getting slammed from all sides in the traditional media, but the suits at the top may not care. They may even repeat it, justifying it with a town hall or two for Biden as “balance.”
Just a couple of headlines
Trump’s CNN Town Hall Was a MAGA Rally (nymag.com)
‘Shameful’ And A ‘Disaster’: CNN Blasted After Lie-Filled Trump Town Hall | HuffPost Latest News
Trump Doubles Down On His Jan. 6 Lies, Won’t Apologize To Pence At CNN Town Hall | HuffPost Latest News
Toe-curlingly bad television: Trump’s torturous town hall backfires on CNN | US news | The Guardian
Opinion | Trump’s ‘Stupid,’ ‘Stupid’ Town Hall - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
First Thing: Trump repeats conspiracy theories and election lies in CNN town hall | US news | The Guardian
Trump’s CNN town hall: Election lies and attacks on E. Jean Carroll | AP News
CNN Renews the Trump Show - The Atlantic
Trump’s Falsehoods and Bluster Overtake CNN Town Hall - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Trump’s CNN town hall: Election lies and attacks on E. Jean Carroll | AP News
**
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Hey CNN!
Will you provide tiki torches for your next Trump rally?
Dear George Santos:
I can tell you where Hunter Biden wasn’t – and that was at the Senator Pothole Federal Courthouse on Lon Guyland getting arraigned for various financial crimes.
Understatement of the year.
It was an absolute horror shitshow from start to finish. It was like time froze when Twitter cut off his megaphone on January 7th, and the clock just started running again last night.
Everything was there. Stolen election. Won’t recognize the next election unless he wins, racist and sexist comments, bullying and all the crap.
And with a packed room of cheering and laughing supporters eating it all up.
Brought back every nightmare and bad feeling like we had never had a moment of relief.
We’re not free of this thing until he finally strokes the fuck out.
“This is so bad,” one of CNN’s on-air personalities told The Daily Beast before the first commercial break. "I was cautiously optimistic despite the criticism… it is awful. It’s a Trump infomercial. We’re going to get crushed.”
Who is this? Who is this alleged “journalist” who hasn’t been paying attention since 2015 at least? Shameful.
Also I open up my Google News feed this morning and see the following from CNN:
8 takeaways from Trump’s CNN town hall in New Hampshire
Opinion: The chilling reality of Trump
They started a dumpsterfire so they can generate content about the dumpsterfire. That should be against the rules. Yeah, I’m done with CNN.
Also, if they wanted to do this stunt for whatever reason, they should have cut his mic off whenever he detoured into bullshit. They could have done that! They didn’t have to let him have a full platform for his lies! And yeah he would have walked off the set within 3 minutes, but at least CNN could pretend they did the right thing in that case.
Collins chose to be a part of this, she deserves plenty of blame here.
The only person who should suffer for this is Chris Licht, who is driving CNN into a ditch (I watched none of it). CNN should learn that MAGAt eyeballs aren’t worth selling your reputation.
Many people expected CNN’s Town Hall event with Donald Trump on Wednesday night to be a high-drama affair. This was understandable, given the timing: just a day after a Manhattan jury found that he had sexually abused and defamed writer E. Jean Carroll. Nobody is entirely sure how voters will respond to this horrifying development, which underscores the 45th president’s despicable reputation for violating and disrespecting women. You had to wonder if moderator Kaitlan Collins or members of the audience would give Trump a stiffer challenge than he’s had so far in a 2024 presidential campaign he’s dominated. I half-expected Trump to come out half-deranged, raving about his persecution by liberal elites and their judicial-system hirelings. Even the ex-president himself said the event might “be a total disaster for all — including me!”
It didn’t go down that way at all. For much of the New Hampshire town hall, the crowd of Republicans and independents cheered Trump and hooted at Collins. Most of the relatively few audience questions were softballs. All that was missing from this CNN-sponsored MAGA rally was Trump doing his weird “dance” steps to “Y.M.C.A.” Most shockingly, when Trump again defamed and mocked Carroll for suggesting he assaulted her, the audience laughed and applauded. It was a brutal politician feeding on a brutal crowd.
Trump broke no new significant ground. Collins began the town hall by repeatedly challenging his hallucinatory account of the 2020 election and of January 6, 2021. Trump did not give an inch. Confronted yet again with the terrifying conduct of the mob that broke into the Capitol, he went out of his way to promise he would pardon “a large portion” of those jailed for their actions. Even where a bit of candor might have helped him with the crowd or the broader public, he wouldn’t budge, refusing repeatedly to say whether he would sign a national abortion ban. When Collins tried to corner him, he mixed one of his patented word salads and filibustered the clock away.
