Jon Stewart Torched CNN For Its Disastrous Trump Town Hall, Saying It Taught People ‘Nothing’ New About The MAGA Crowd

Last week, after months of declining ratings, CNN threw a hail Mary: They had Donald Trump participate in a town hall. It did not go well. Not only did the former president do what he always does: lie, early and often, despite moderator Kaitlan Collins’ spluttering attempts to call out his un-truths. It also subtracted credibility from an already struggling news network. Among the event’s many critics are Jon Stewart, who shot down claims that by giving a platform to a known liar, CNN was simply trying to educate the populace.

“Dear TV,” Stewart tweeted a few days after the town hall. “The problem w the Trump Town Hall wasn’t platforming … or a fragile siloed audience unable to be exposed to newsworthy opinions antithetical to their own … the problem was an event that was clearly negotiated to Trump’s approval. An ode to access.”

Stewart mocked CNN brass’ attempts to kiss the boot of the MAGA crowd, who will never like them anyway and who are even drifting away from Fox News to the even more deranged likes of Newsmax and OANN. He also argued that the event failed at the very thing Licht and company are supposed to do: inform the populace.

“I learned nothing from this town hall about Trump and his most ardent supporters I haven’t known since 2016,” Stewart wrote. “I learned a lot about CNN.”

The town hall featured Trump making one tall or misleading claim after another. At one point he addressed the biggest elephant in the room: that the day before he’d been found guilty of defamation and sexual misconduct. Trump cracked jokes about the woman who sued him, E. Jean Carroll, prompting laughs from the Republican- and Independent-stacked crowd.

In the aftermath, Anderson Cooper tried to spin it as exposing viewers to worldviews outside of their bubbles. That didn’t go well either.

(Via HuffPost)