Two big announcements were made in Media World last week that shocked millions. We learned then that top-rated TV commentator Tucker Carlson and Fox News had “parted ways,” and that CNN’s Don Lemon had been fired from the struggling network after 17 years.
Apparently, blockbuster announcements from the media on Mondays are now becoming a thing, because one week after we found out about the Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon news, we learned that CNN will be hosting a town hall next week in New Hampshire that will feature 2024 GOP presidential nominee and former president Donald Trump:
With the 2024 presidential election underway, CNN Anchor Kaitlan Collins will moderate a live CNN Town Hall with former President Donald Trump at 9pmET on Wednesday, May 10 from St. Anselm College in New Hampshire.The former President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate will take questions from Collins and a live audience of New Hampshire Republican and undeclared voters who say they intend to vote in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary.CNN has a longstanding tradition of hosting leading presidential candidates for Town Halls and political events as a critical component of the network’s robust campaign coverage. This event with former President Trump will be the first of many for CNN in the coming months as CNN correspondents travel across the country to hear directly from voters in the runup to the 2024 presidential election.
Here’s CNN’s Jim Sciutto sharing the news on the air. Below is a promo CNN is now airing for the event:
Like the Carlson and Lemon stories, this one came out of nowhere for political junkies, most of whom are well aware of the highly contentious history between CNN and Trump before he was elected president in 2016.
That history includes barring Kaitlan Collins from a Trump Rose Garden event in the summer of 2018 because the White House felt she was rude when shouting questions at Trump during another event earlier in the day after she reportedly had been asked to leave.
Collins, as many Legal Insurrection readers will also recall, once worked for the Carlson-founded Daily Caller website.
Considering the bad blood between Trump and CNN and the fact that Trump has also hinted that he may not participate in some of the GOP presidential primary debates due to concerns about moderator and sponsor bias, the news came as somewhat of a surprise to conservatives. But it was the woke left who were hardest hit, with “#BoycottCNN” trending for a good chunk of the day Monday as Democrats let CEO Chris Licht have it:
According to Politico, the Trump/CNN town hall has been in the works for months, and is “an implicit rebuke of Fox News”:
But the decision to participate in the town hall is also an implicit rebuke of Fox News. While Trump had long been close with the conservative-leaning network, he has complained of late that the organization has turned against him. Those close to the former president privately contend that Fox News — and other outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch — have been favorable toward DeSantis.[…]A person familiar with the discussions said CNN approached the Trump campaign several months ago, and talks between the two sides continued on until Monday, when the plans were locked down. The former president has largely forsworn participating in any mainstream media interviews since leaving the presidency. And CNN, in particular, has been on the receiving end of Trump’s vitriol.
There’s no word yet on whether any of the other GOP contenders who have announced their presidential candidacies including former Trump ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson have received similar invites.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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