Trump CNN Town Hall was a shameless ratings grab


The debate continues over former President Donald Trump’s appearance in a live town hall on CNN. As Democrats fume over Trump getting the chance to repeat his debunked accusations of election fraud on live TV, CNN’s Anderson Cooper is now facing criticism for his “condescending” defense of the cable network.

Straight Arrow News contributor David Pakman wonders why Trump was given such a friendly venue — complete with cheering Trump supporters — to repeat his lies. He says the CNN town hall was an obvious and shameless ratings grab.

So I understand CNN’s reasoning for doing this. So you think the election is so far away, nobody’s running against Trump, it’s so early. [But] why? Why give the guy this publicity in this way?

It’s because it generated great interest. CNN, under the leadership of Chris Licht, is looking to do what it can to see better ratings. And you have a situation right now where because [sic] Trump has been attacking Fox News for about a year and because Fox News recently fired Tucker Carlson, you have millions of people who are disaffected by Fox News. They want something else, they want a different home. And what better thing than to host Donald Trump in front of a sycophant crowd, to have him rudely react to Kaitlan Collins who’s supposed to be hosting the thing.

That’s a great way to attract some of these potentially disaffected Fox viewers. So in sum total, it was a journalistic disgrace. It was successful for CNN in the sense of a ratings-generating environment.