CNN immediately came under fire Monday afternoon when the flailing news network announced it will host a “presidential town hall” next week featuring Donald Trump, the ex-president who is under criminal felony indictment, currently being sued in a civil rape and defamation case, and under multiple other likely criminal investigations including for his actions surrounding his January 6, 2021 insurrection and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“The event,” CNN revealed, “will feature the former president taking questions from New Hampshire Republicans and undeclared voters who plan to vote in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.”
No other candidates, announced or unannounced, appear to have been invited to attend, making it an entire show focused on the ex-president who lost his re-election bid by 7,059,526 votes.
The 2024 presidential election is 18 months away.
Former CNN and MSNBC journalist Keith Olbermann declared that CNN was “committing journalistic suicide.”
“If there was ONE consensus about 2024 it was that ‘covering’ Trump the way they did in 2016 (handing him live blocks of free airtime with no fact-checking possible) was irresponsible,” he observed. “And CNN’s doing it.”
He did not stop there.
Olbermann blasted CNN Chairman and CEO Chris Licht, saying, “I think we can say Chris Licht’s conversion of [CNN] into a political and journalistic whorehouse is complete.”
“First, CNN systematically purged anyone on the network who was deemed too anti-Trump,” journalist and Popular Information founder Judd Legum noted. “Now this.”
Calling CNN’s Trump town hall “irresponsible,” David Rothkopf, the well-known foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst, commentator, and author warned it will be a “sham” if it does not begin with the question, “You lead an insurrection against the government of the US, why should any American voter support a candidate who sought to undermine the Constitution, institutions and values he was sworn to uphold?”
“Failing to address the coup attempt, his legal woes, his impeachments, his lies will be disqualifying,” he added.
Writer, filmmaker, artist, and activist Barbara Malmet, a frequent political commentator said,”I’m old enough to remember when Donald called CNN the enemy of the people. Chris Licht is giving him a town hall now. Because platforming an insurrectionist on trial for rape accused of 34 felonies is a thing now.”
“Let’s normalize him more,” lamented top national security attorney Brad Moss. “That’s great.”
Watch CNN’s announcement below or at this link.
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