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Anderson Cooper issued a somber warning Thursday night as he started his nightly broadcast for CNN, addressing the widespread criticism the network received the night prior after hosting a live town hall forum with ex-President Donald Trump.
The former president joined CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, Wednesday night in front of a live audience made up of voters who plan to vote in the 2024 GOP presidential primary in their state next spring. The 70-minute program was filled with lies and misleading statements from the former president, who used the broadcast to push his familiar falsehoods, including the widely debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
Collins spent much of the night attempting to fact-check or push against Trump's statements, but the program sparked outrage aimed at CNN, with many people arguing that it was irresponsible to give the former president a live national audience to push his platform.
Cooper, who hosts Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN every weeknight, started his Thursday show addressing the town hall and the backlash his network has received because of it, referring to Trump as a person "who attempted to destroy our democracy" and called the program itself "disturbing."
"Many of you think CNN shouldn't have given him any platform to speak, and I understand the anger about that. Giving him the audience, the time, I get that," Cooper said.
"But this is what I also get. The man you were so disturbed to see and hear from last night, that man is the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president, and according to polling, no other Republican's even close," he continued. "That man you were so upset to hear from last night, he may be president of the United States in less than two years. And that audience that upset you, that's a sampling of about half the country. They are your family members, your neighbors, and they are voting, and many said they're voting for him."
The voters in attendance showed an overwhelming enthusiasm for Trump through the town hall, including applauding during some of his more contentious moments, such as telling Collins that she was a "nasty person."
"Now, maybe you haven't been paying attention to him since he left office," Cooper continued. "Maybe you've been enjoying not hearing from him, thinking, it can't happen again, some investigation is going to stop him. Well, it hasn't so far.
"So if last night showed anything, it showed it can happen again," he said. "It is happening again. He hasn't changed and he is running hard."
Newsweek has reached out to Trump's press team Thursday evening for comment on Cooper's statements.
In a statement to Newsweek Wednesday night, a CNN spokesperson defended the network's decision to host Trump's town hall, writing in an email that the outlet's "role and responsibility" was "to get answers and hold the powerful to account."
The spokesperson also praised Collins for showing "what it means to be a world-class journalist" while moderating, adding that she "followed up and fact-checked President Trump in real time to arm voters with crucial information."
CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy also praised his colleague in his CNN newsletter for being "tough and knowledgeable." But Darcy sided with the network's critics, writing that it was "hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening."
"And CNN aired it all," Darcy added. "On and on it went. It felt like 2016 all over again. It was Trump's unhinged social media feed brought to life on stage. And Collins was put in an uncomfortable position, given the town hall was conducted in front of a Republican audience that applauded Trump, giving a sense of unintended endorsement to his shameful antics."
Other prominent voices, such as Mary Trump, the former president's niece, called CNN "anti-American" for allowing the former president to have a platform.
"In less than an hour, they allowed an authoritarian wannabe to lie constantly while an audience full of his followers applauded," Mary Trump wrote on Twitter Wednesday. "This was not a town hall, it was a rally."
Trump, on the other hand, has been overwhelmingly positive about his appearance on the network, which was his first time on CNN since his 2016 presidential run. In a Truth Social post on Thursday, the former president claimed that it was "a very smart thing" for CNN to host the forum, adding that the network received "Sky High Ratings that they haven't seen in a very long time."
"The Radical Left screamed, 'Take it down, take it down,' during the Show, because they saw that I was making so many important points on the Border, Energy Independence, the Afghanistan Catastrophe, Inflation, the Economy, Russia/Ukraine, and so much more," Trump added.
Preliminary data from the Nielsen ratings found that CNN outperformed Fox News, the nation's most-watched cable network, during the time Trump was on air, including at one point doubling Fox's viewership.
About the writer
Kaitlin Lewis is a Newsweek reporter on the Night Team based in Boston, Massachusetts. Her focus is reporting on national ... Read more