caitlin collins had asked a single question, these people were saying that trump, a former president and the leading candidate by far for the republican nomination, should be barred from tv, banned, exiled, silenced because they just don t like him. but that s ludicrous. this wasn t a rally where he just gets to pop off. and whatever you think of trump, shouldn t journalists question him as part of the campaign? as it turned out, the town hall turned into an absolute train wreck, even many people at cmn being sharply critical. but the alternative, banning trump from the airwaves, is suppression of speech, and that is not journalism. i m howard kurtz and this is mediabuzz. howard: ahead, george santos versus the media mob as he is indicted for fraud. the first 24 minutes of the cnn event was spent on two of donald trump s true curing subjects recurring subject, the 2020 election and the capitol riot, and that insured a clash from the start. it was not a rigged election
could. there was a lot of conspiracy theory thrown out not only about january 6th, but also about the ongoing investigations into election fraud in georgia. let s be honest, yes, there have been sexual assault or misconduct allegations against multiple people in our presidency or those who have run. but this is the first time in american history where there has actually been a sexual misif conduct case that literally misconduct case that literally resulted this liability not only for sexual abuse, but with also for defamation. that is a donald trump first k and that is historical for that reason. howard: right. trump, of course, is appealing. just briefly on the broader question, robby, the mainstream media and trump are never going to agree on the what happened in the 2020 election. the former president seems to have no inclination to drop kit, but the problem is many republicans believe it and don t trust people in our profession. but honestly, trump could do himself a lot of goo
i think the ratings on that cnn town hall actually proved that as well. howard: right. cnn usually gets about 500,000 in that prime time spot, 3 million a although it was lower than for biden. susan, even if the accusations are true, this allegedly happened in a new york department store in the 19 is 90s, more than a quarter century ogg. ago. as with the stormy daniels indictment, do the media care about this a lot more than most voters? well, i think [audio difficulty] you know, trump is ratings gold, and this was a titillating story, so the media is going to be attract thed to it very intensely. i thoroughly expected that to happen. and ultimately, as i say, or it ll be part of the mix. it s a year and a half away, the election. how much it matters by then depends on so many other factors. whether he s charged in some other cases, i think it ll be part of the mix, part of the equation when trump look when
you can t shut him down, keep him out of the i dialogue. so that kind of criticism, that this was dangerous aoc suggest suggested it was like retraumatizing sexual assault vix given the e. jean carroll verdict, he s going to speak, and it s the job of journalists to talk with him. howard: that s why i led with it because it seems to me we ve got a year and a half of in this to go. he would say rigged election, caitlin collins would correct him, they would go round and owned four times talking over each other. caitlin collins, who was on this show years ago when she worked for the daily caller, in that first half hour, do you have any regrets about january 6th? what about terminating the constitution, the election wasn t rigged and so forth, and he would say it again and again, and she would try to correct him again and again. what did cnn expect? caitlin collins did the best she could with the hand that she was dealt. we all know that former president trump is a wildcard. he has be
that as poised as she possibly could, but she was dealing with someone who was set to lie, lie and keep lying, and it was happening so fast, i think she attempted to fact check, but she lost control of that room very, very quickly. and donald trump had an agenda, it was to go there, to reinvigorate that the 2020 election was stolen, it was to deny e. jean carroll, that anything happened, that he even knew that woman even though we heard what happened just the day before, an op-ed in newsweek in the wake of that. and i think at the end of the day donald trump did what he wanted to do, but so did cnn. the main goal was to be a ratingsings juggernaut, and they used donald trump to do that. his main thing was to keep saying what he s been saying over and over again, 2020 election was stolen, he s basically not guilty of anything anywhere, and, you know, throw out some barbs that are just patently untrue about abortion rights and other things. it was very frustrating to watch. howard: yea