Some of us who were alive in 2015 still remember how CNN debased itself by uncritically airing every noxious Trump utterance. Never before had a racist demagogue been granted so much free media time. CNN salivated over his brainless rallies so badly that sometimes it beamed images of an empty podium and posted this chyron: “Breaking News. Standing By for Trump to Speak.”
A star was born, thanks to CNN president Jeff Zucker, whose idea it was to broadcast those rallies in their entirety – in his parlance, “to let them run” – without fact-checking the endless lies, because, gosh, he could not resist the real-time drama. As Zucker later remarked in his own defense, “You never knew what (Trump) was going to say.”
Eight years later, Zucker is gone. So can we assume that CNN has smartened up and learned its lesson? Nope. CNN has announced its next big event, slated for next Wednesday:
Presidential Town Hall With Donald Trump
Yes, folks, Trump is the network’s big “get,” as they say in show biz. Deja vu, anyone? Matthew McConaughey, in True Detective, said: “Time is a flat circle.” True that. The CNN announcement is like a rotating plate of leftovers in a microwave oven.
Granted, CNN and the rest of the mainstream media have upped their game since 2015. Today, fact-checking the serial liar is as much a national pastime as baseball, his authoritarian impulses are a matter of public record, and the impending “town hall” will be helmed by Kaitlin Collins, who doesn’t abide Trump’s bullshit.
But my concerns start with the aforementioned announcement. It would be far more accurate – it’s objective truth, after all – to herald the event as “Town Hall With Twice-Impeached, Sedition-Stoking, Election-Denying, Criminal Defendant Donald Trump,” and, who knows, by next Wednesday he may well be convicted by a jury in a rape and defamation civil trial. Promoting this event as if Trump were just like any other candidate is a crime against sanity and democracy.
CNN’s political director, David Chalian, conceded the other day that Trump is “a unique candidate” with “a series of investigations around him.” So, at bare minimum, shouldn’t the network promo his appearance accordingly – instead of further normalizing a demagogue who has stoked violence against that very same network? In 2018, lest we forget, a MAGA nutcase was inspired by Trump’s rants against CNN to mail bombs to CNN.
It’s no mystery why CNN has gifted Trump another platform. Business is business. With Fox News in turmoil, CNN aspires to be “Fox Lite,” boosting its ratings by luring some Fox viewers. The new CNN president, Chris Licht, has basically laid out that plan. Licht has said that he wants CNN to be more “objective” and more “respectful of differing viewpoints.” And his overlords at the parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery (especially bigwig Trump donor John Malone), say they want CNN to be more “neutral.” Or, in Malone’s words, more “centrist.”
But I gotta ask: With democracy in serious peril, how is the free press supposed to be “neutral”? Is there some magic “centrist” midpoint between defending democracy and destroying it? Should CNN and the rest of the mainstream media twist itself in knots to be “respectful” of those who are plotting that assault – showing that “respect” by awarding an hour of air time to the principal insurrectionist?
As host, Kaitlin Collins will likely challenge Trump a few times and correct his most blatant lies in real time. But rest assured that the town hall participants – a bunch of New Hampshire voters – will ask him the kind of open-ended questions (“What’s your policy on education?” “How will you stop crime?”) that will prompt him to run out the clock with unhinged digressions and anti-fact fulminations.
Barring a miracle, here are some of the questions we won’t hear:
*Mr. Trump, your company was recently convicted on 17 counts of criminal tax fraud, and you’re being sued for years of financial fraud. Why should we trust you with our household finances if you can’t be trusted to manage your own?
*Mr. Trump, you inspired a violent deadly insurrection against the U.S. government. Are you willing to state and pledge here and now that you will not do so again?
*Mr. Trump, the Economist magazine, which is not known to be a liberal rag, warned recently that if congressional Republicans force the U.S. to default on its debts, it would be “devastating for global markets.” These are the same Republicans who voted to raise the debt ceiling three times when you were president. Do you support their current confrontation with President Biden, even if it’s “devastating for global markets”?
*In hindsight, Mr. Trump, do you regret cheating with a porn star while your third wife was home with a newborn child, and paying off the porn star to keep quiet?
*Mr. Trump, how do you explain the fact that your Access Hollywood remarks about sexually assaulting women match so perfectly with the new sworn testimonies of E. Jean Carroll, Jessica Leeds, and Natasha Stoynoff?
*Mr. Trump you recently vowed that, if elected, you will cancel the accreditation and seize the endowment of any “Marxist” college or university that practices affirmative action. In your words, “we are going to get this anti-American insanity out of our institutions.” As the creator of Trump University, do you have the credibility to threaten legitimate schools?
*Mr. Trump, you recently told the NRA that we should investigate whether being trans and smoking weed are causing gun violence. You said, “I think most of us already know the answer.” Can you cite any factual evidence to support that conclusion?
*Mr. Trump, every time you’re accused of sexual assault, you say that the accuser is not your “type.” You even told Ms. Carroll’s attorney, “You wouldn’t be a choice of mine, either.” Has it ever occurred to you that your accusers don’t see you as their type?
*Mr. Trump, after Jack Smith is done with you, only one question will remain: Will you eat meals with the other inmates, or insist on dining in your cell?
OK, skip those last two questions. But seriously, have we somehow forgotten that Trump during the ’16 primary season was awarded the equivalent of $2 billion in free media time? We cannot afford to risk further normalization of home-grown fascism. If time is indeed a flat circle, we need to get off it.