A Few Thoughts about the CNN townhall with Trump

By Patricia McCarthy, AM THINKER

Few of his supporters were surprised to learn that Trump was going to do a sit-down in New Hampshire for CNN.  The man does not shy away from potential political disasters; he thrives on them, runs straight at them, unafraid.

Why?  Because he always comes out of these things having won bigly.  Not only is he quick thinking and knowledgeable when it comes to the facts on all the relevant issues, he is gloriously entertaining, verbally and visually.  His facial expressions and gestures say as much he does with words.

The CNN sit-down Wednesday night was no exception.  Host Kaitlan Colllins clearly thought she would have the upper hand.  Coming from the bubble of leftist propaganda that is CNN’s principal reason for being, of course she believed she would be the hero of the event.  But she got her comeuppance within the first few minutes.  She acted the fool and Trump does not suffer fools, he eviscerates them with a smile on his face.

He certainly got the better of Kaitlan Collins despite her rude, smug arrogance.  She set a new record for dismissive interviews.  She forgot that Trump has had years and years of experience with boorish and ignorant pretend journalists who hate, loathe and despise him. She clearly has no experience with an outlier with so many IQ points on her.

With each question she aimed to embarrass him, to humiliate him.  But she had no actual facts, not when it came to protecting schools, the Second Amendment, the documents stored at Mar-A-Lago,  the event of January 6, 2021, the border wall, school shootings (she exaggerated wildly), etc.

She had what she thought were facts but were just Democrat talking points.  For example, Trump noted that the man who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt, Michael Byrd, bragged about having done it, which he did.  He said that killing her saved lives! Collins tried to deny that fact.

She accused Trump of not keeping his promise to build the wall!  He did, despite the Democrats’ fevered attempts to stop it.  It stopped the day Biden took office, as did the new pipelines and drilling that had provided energy independence for us.

In short, Collins was overconfident, prepared to crush the man, but he crushed her with some delightful facial mockery and without lifting his little finger.  Collins is the new Candy Crowley of CNN.  It was a very entertaining interview.

Every time Trump mentioned the 2020 election, she interrupted to say words to the effect of, “There was no fraud Mr. President.”  There was, of course, but she, like the rest of the left, has avoided looking at the volumes of evidence from the beginning.  It’s a safe bet that Collins has never read the Navarro Report or any of the others countless reports that prove fraud, the same forms of fraud that affected the 2022 elections.  Katie Hobbs, for example,  did not win the governorship of Arizona.  At one point, Trump looked at her and told her she is a “very nasty person.”  She was indeed.  There was tremendous satisfaction in watching him vanquish her while she still thought she had the upper hand.  Ah, the hubris of youth. So robbed of critical thinking skills, without any wisdom that comes with age, blinded by their own self-importance, they don’t see their defeat until it buries them.  Kaitlan Collins got buried tonight.

Needless to say, the audience loved Trump.  He took some very good questions from the audience, each of them more thoughtful than any Collins asked.

It is said that people who think they have all the answers do not ask interesting questions.  That was Collins.  Each of her questions was framed as either an insult or an attack.  Trump gave good and thoughtful answers to the questions from the audience, none of which Collins appeared happy with; she hated every answer he provided.  As the interview progressed, she withered under his knowledge and competence.

Given Trump’s age, she perhaps expected a man with Biden’s impaired abilities and assumed she could and would mortify Trump with her meant-to-embarrass questions and mis-statements of fact.  She failed.  He embarrassed her.  He got a standing ovation at the end, which he certainly deserved.

It was clear from the outset that Collins was outmatched.  Even AOC saw that it was train wreck.  She tweeted early in the hour:

They have lost total control of this “town hall” to again be manipulated into platforming election disinformation, defenses of Jan 6th, and a public attack on a sexual abuse victim. The audience is cheering him on and laughing at the host.

For once, she was absolutely correct.  Trump’s poll numbers will very likely rise again.

“It is the mark of the mind untrained to take its own processes as valid for all men, and its own judgments for absolute truth.”  Aleister Crowley

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NATIONAL REVIEW

Trump’s TKO against CNN
By On the menu today: I had debated whether I wanted to write about Donald Trump and CNN two days in a row, but last night was an embarrassing debacle for the news network and an unexpectedly clear knockout win for the former president. The night was effectively won the moment that CNN invited the New Hampshire GOP and other state groups to help fill the audience, ensuring that Trump would be performing in front of an enthusiastically supportive crowd. Sure, the viewers at home probably weren’t as impressed, and the folks who will see the clips in the next few days might be even less so. But the persistent applause and laughter created a sense that Trump was in complete command of the room and toying with moderator Kaitlan Collins. CNN has a lot of egg on its face this morning. Meanwhile, Trump endorsed defaulting on the debt, and in the process, may well have increased the leverage of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

CNN’s Embarrassing Evening

Last night’s “town-hall meeting” turned into a nationally televised live Trump rally, with intermittent questions from moderator Kaitlan Collins that the former president brushed off, mocked, and ignored. Instead, Trump offered the live audience and those at home an auditory version of his Truth Social rants, bulldozing over Collins’s objections.

May 11, 2023 | 1 Comment »

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  1. I have mixed feelings about Trump, but on the whole, I like him, especially in light of what he did for the country while he was in office, despite incredible opposition from the Democrats and the saboteurs in his own party.

    That said, (and this really sticks in my craw), I have to give CNN credit for holding the event…at all. And even more than that, they invited the New Hampshire GOP to attend. Was that a blunder on their part? Perhaps not. From all reports, the interview was typical CNN, with a “very nasty person” asking the questions, but still, CNN did it. Who woulda thought? I imagine that their ratings went up substantially…at least momentarily. Maybe they’ll get the hint.