Some say the fable was first told in Soviet Russia in the 1930s. The scorpion, who doesn’t know how to swim, wants to cross to the other side of the river. So he asks his friend, the frog, to ferry him across on his back. Some scorpion stings can kill you. Some are just very painful, but all can cause numbness and difficulty breathing. Naturally, the frog is concerned that the scorpion might sting him. The scorpion quickly points out that if he stings the frog, they’d both probably drown. That would be crazy, right? Which convinces the frog to help. But halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog. Just before he dies, the completely confused frog asks: “Why did you sting me?” And the scorpion says, “Because I’m a scorpion.”
Given what life was like in the Soviet Union under the madman Stalin, who killed artists, intellectuals, and political rivals, with his forced collectivization of peasants and small farmers, his prison labor camps, the story makes perfect sense. Stalin and his followers were deadly scorpions.
To some, it seemed as if CNN was tempting fate—playing the frog. Especially now, given the actions of two different juries. One jury ordered FOX News to pay Dominion Voting Machines almost $800 million for constantly broadcasting lies about Dominion’s purported role in Trump’s stolen election delusion. Then, under the provisions of New York’s Adult Survivors Act, another jury in Manhattan rendered a $5 million verdict against the former president for defaming E. Jean Carroll and sexually assaulting her. Nevertheless, CNN decided to give the truth-allergic Donald Trump an hour of prime-time coverage:

CNN’s decision was met with anger and scorn. Some, like Bill Grueskin, a member of the faculty of Columbia University Journalism School, were critical of CNN’s failure to ensure a balanced town hall audience.
Where did CNN recruit this crowd? From the Mar-a-Lago parking lot?
— Bill Grueskin (@BGrueskin) May 11, 2023
MSNBC’s Mehdi Hassan offered this pointed judgment in his article “Why CNN’s Trump town hall was always doomed to fail: But truly, what did CNN or Kaitlan Collins think would happen?“: “The only way Collins really could have even semi-succeeded would have been if she had ignored the audience and the format entirely and instead tried to pin Trump down on each and every one of his false and offensive statements.”
I no longer believe there are simple, clear ways to distinguish between success and failure. In 2021, basketball super-star Giannis Antetokounmpo won the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Most Valuable Player Award (MVP) and then the Finals MVP as his Milwaukee Bucks won the NBA Championship. Then, when his team lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Miami Heat this year, a reporter asked if this season was a failure. Giannis took exception: “Oh my god. You asked me the same question last year, Eric … okay? Do you get a promotion every year? In your job? No, right? So every year you work is a failure? Yes or no? No. Every year you work, you work towards something, towards a goal—which is to get a promotion, to be able to take care of your family, provide a house for them, or take care of your parents. You work towards a goal—it’s not a failure. It’s steps to success. I don’t want to make it personal. There’s always steps to it. Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships. The other nine years was a failure? That’s what you’re telling me. I’m asking you a question, yes or no? Exactly. So why you ask me that question? It’s the wrong question.”
CNN’s decision and the job that Kaitlan Collins did—and Donald Trump’s performance—raise complicated and critical issues about American politics today, our First Amendment, and the job of journalists. They raise questions about success and failure. I’m with Giannis Antetokounmpo: Too many are asking the wrong questions and running with the wrong answers. I’m going to focus on a few episodes during a completely exhausting hour-long torrent of unending lies and personal attacks. Yet, despite the criticism, I thought Kaitlan Collins stood unbowed as she faced a hostile audience and the contemptuous Trump, yet continued to insist upon the truth. Did she stop every single time the former President lied? No. That would’ve made the hour as much about her as him, and it would have subsequently devolved into a shouting match. A failure, not a success.
Here is how Kaitlan Collins set the stage: “Tonight, President Trump is … the first former president in more than a century to seek a return to the White House. And he is currently leading the Republican field, while also facing multiple criminal investigations and an indictment. Just yesterday, he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation. No questions are off the table, and we agreed to no conditions … Our audience is made up of Republicans and undeclared voters who plan to take part in New Hampshire’s Republican primary … Thank you for being here tonight.” (Emphasis added.)
Kaitlan Collins was poised, polite, and always professional. It took only a moment for Donald Trump’s first fib:
TRUMP: “How nice to see you.”
(No, it wasn’t really nice to see or hear her as she reminded us of those criminal investigations, and the jury’s decision to extract five million of his Trump dollars for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll.)
COLLINS: “We’ve got a great crowd here in New Hampshire, a lot of voters with a lot of questions about what your 2024 term would look like … [Y]our polls show that you are dominating the Republican race right now, but you are also under active federal investigation for trying to overturn the 2020 election results. Your first term ended with a deadly riot at the Capitol, and you still have not publicly acknowledged the 2020 election results. Why should Americans put you back in the White House?”
TRUMP: “Because we did fantastically. We got 12 million more votes than we had in—as you know, in 2016 … the most that anybody’s ever gotten as a sitting president of the United States. I think that, when you look at that result and when you look at what happened during that election, unless you’re a very stupid person, you see what happens … That was a rigged election, and it’s a shame that we had to go through it. It’s very bad for our country. All over the world, they looked at it, and they saw exactly what everyone else saw …” (Emphasis added.)
Many a frog and Town Hall host would have drowned in that first flood of lies. The message was clear: Smart people know the election was rigged. Stupid people, well … And Kaitlan Collins was about to declare herself stupid:
COLLINS: “… it was not a rigged election. It was not a stolen election. You and your supporters lost more than 60 court cases on the election. And it’s been nearly two-and-a-half years. Can you publicly acknowledge that you did lose the 2020 election?”
TRUMP: “Now, let me—let me just go on. If you look at True the Vote, they found millions of votes on camera, on government cameras, where they were stuffing ballot boxes … I think it’s a very sad thing for our country. I think it’s a very sad thing, frankly, for the world, because … our country has gone to hell. Our borders are bad. Our military has been bad … you look at inflation, what’s happened to inflation, it’s just destroying our country. We have really become, in many ways, a Third World country …” (Emphasis added.)
Luckily, I now live in Housatonic. So I might have missed recent developments. Have the rest of you gone to hell? Intrepid Kaitlan Collins briefly changed the subject, then almost immediately circled back:
COLLINS: “We have a lot of questions about the economy and foreign policy tonight … But what you just said there, Republican officials debunked those claims about fraudulent ballots. We want to give you a chance tonight …”
TRUMP: “Who? Who?”
COLLINS: “Republican officials in Georgia …”
TRUMP: “Who?”
COLLINS: “… and every single state … your own election officials, Mr. President …”
TRUMP: “Look, people were afraid to take on the issue … We have elections that were horrible. If you look at what happened in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, if you look at what happened in Detroit, Michigan, if you look at what happened in Atlanta, millions of votes, and all you have to do is take a look at government cameras. You will see them, people going to 28 different voting booths to vote, to put in seven ballots apiece. I mean, and they’re all on camera.”
COLLINS: “But, Mr. President, I have to stop you there, because—because there is no evidence of that. Your own election officials testified to that … In Georgia, there were multiple recounts, including a hand recount … I want to bring in Scott Dustin from Concord. He works in insurance litigation. He is an undeclared voter …”
SCOTT DUSTIN: “Hi, President Trump … Will you suspend polarizing talk of election fraud during your run for president? …”
TRUMP: “Yes, unless I see election fraud. If I see election fraud, I think I have an obligation to say it. And what we went through a short while ago has really put our country in a big problem … But the answer is yes. And I hope that it’s going to be very straight-up, because, if it’s going to be straight-up, we’re going to win the election.”
COLLINS: “I have been to many of your rallies and seen it up close, which raised a lot of questions about the influence that we saw that you had on them on January 6 and your supporters when they attacked the Capitol. Do you have any regrets about your actions on January 6?”
TRUMP: “… January 6 had to do with the fact that hundreds of thousands of people … it was the largest crowd I have ever spoken to … And that was because they thought the election was rigged. And they were there proud. They were there with love in their heart. That was an unbelievable—and it was a beautiful day … I wasn’t involved in it very much … I made a speech. I said, walk peacefully and patriotically, many different things … crazy Nancy Pelosi and the mayor of Washington were in charge, as you know, of security, and they did not do their job.”
COLLINS: “They’re not in charge of the National Guard. You’re in charge of the National Guard.”
TRUMP: “They are in charge … I said, we will give you soldiers. We will give you National Guard. We will give you whatever you want. And they turned me down …”
COLLINS: “But your acting defense secretary, Chris Miller, at the time, he says you never gave a formal order to deploy the National Guard … But you said you weren’t very involved that day. You did tell your supporters to come to Washington …”
TRUMP: “That’s true, of course …”
COLLINS: “When they went to the Capitol and they were breaking into the Capitol, smashing windows, injuring police officers … [W]hy did it take you three hours to tell them to go home?”
TRUMP: “… If you look, January 6, this is at 2 p.m.—before 2:30. I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful … they took it down. I don’t know why. I think they took it down because it was so good … We want no violence. Remember, we are the party of law and order. Respect the law and our great men and women in blue. Thank you. That was at 2:30 …” (Emphasis added.)

COLLINS: “… [Y]ou saw them rushing the Capitol, breaking windows. They were hitting officers with flagpoles, Tasing them, beating them up. When it was clear they weren’t being peaceful, why did you wait three hours to tell them to leave the Capitol? …”
TRUMP: “Nancy Pelosi and the mayor are in charge. I assumed they were able to do their job. They weren’t.”
COLLINS: “But Pelosi is not in charge of Capitol security.”
TRUMP: “… I made a video right outside the Oval Office in the Rose Garden. And I’m very proud of that video. I didn’t have a script. I don’t need scripts, like a certain person that’s in there right now.”
COLLINS: “… [T]he video … it wasn’t posted until 4:17 p.m. … in that three hours, over 140 officers were injured …”
TRUMP: “And a person named Ashli Babbitt was killed … And that thug that killed her, there was no reason to shoot her at blank range. Cold, blank range, they shot her. And she was a good person. She was a patriot …. And he went on television to brag about the fact that he killed her …”
COLLINS: “That officer was not bragging about the fact that he killed her.”
TRUMP: “Oh, he was bragging.”
COLLINS: “But one person who was at the Capitol that day, as you know, was your vice president, Mike Pence, who says that you endangered his life on that day …”
TRUMP: “I don’t think he was in any danger.”
COLLINS: “Mr. President, do you feel that you owe him an apology?”
TRUMP: “No, because he did something wrong. He should have put the votes back to the state legislatures and I think we would have had a different outcome. I really do …”
COLLINS: “The vice president doesn’t have the authority to reject those—those electoral results …”
TRUMP: “Mike had the right to do it. They convinced him he didn’t, and it was a horrible thing for our country. If you would have sent those votes back to Georgia, Pennsylvania, and other states—Wisconsin, which if you look at Wisconsin, they virtually admitted now that the election was rigged … so many illegal votes were cast in Wisconsin. And if you look in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, they had so many legal—illegal votes, they didn’t even know what to do with them. You’re absolutely wrong about that.”
COLLINS: “Mr. President, there weren’t any fraudulent votes in Wisconsin … I should note that your campaign paid for a recount that happened in Wisconsin and actually had more votes for President Biden by the end of it …”
TRUMP: “… You’re absolutely wrong about that.”
COLLINS: “Mr. President, there weren’t any fraudulent votes in Wisconsin …”
RETIRED ATTORNEY WAYNE BEYER: “My question to you is: Will you pardon the January 6th rioters who were convicted of federal offenses?”
TRUMP: “I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can’t say for every single one because a couple of them, probably, they got out of control. But, you know, when you look at Antifa, what they’ve done to Portland … at what they’ve done to Minneapolis and so many other—so many other places, look at what they did to Seattle. And BLM—BLM, many people were killed … you have two standards of justice in this country, and … what they’ve done to so many people is nothing—nothing. And then what they’ve done to these people, they’ve persecuted these people. And yeah, my answer is I am most likely … And they’re living in hell right now …and they’re policemen, and they’re firemen, and they’re soldiers, and they’re carpenters and electricians and they’re great people. Many of them are just great people.”
COLLINS: “Mr. President, one of the people who was convicted was a former policeman, but he was convicted of attacking a police officer … does that include the four Proud Boys members who were charged and convicted of seditious conspiracy?”
TRUMP: “I don’t know. I’ll have to look at their case, but I will say in Washington, D.C., you cannot get a fair trial, you cannot. Just like in New York City, you can’t get a fair trial either.”
COLLINS: “Speaking of New York … I know this is something you want to weigh in on as well. A Manhattan jury found—that you sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll and defamed her. You’ve denied this. But what do you say to voters who say it disqualifies you from being president?”
TRUMP: “Well, there weren’t too many of them because my poll numbers just came out. They went up, okay? … [A]nd they went up with the other fake charge, too, because what’s happening is they’re doing this for election interference. This woman, I don’t know her. I never met her. I have no idea who she is. I had a picture taken years ago with her and her husband, nice guy John Johnson. He was a newscaster, very nice man. She called him an ape, happens to be African-American. Called him an ape … the judge wouldn’t allow to put that in …”
COLLINS: “This was a jury of nine people who found you … liable of sexual abuse. Do you think that—that will deter women from voting for you?”
TRUMP: “… She was about 60 years. This is like 22, 23 years ago. I met her in the front door of Bergdorf Goodman. I was immediately attracted to her and she was immediately attracted to me. And we had this great chemistry. We’re walking into a crowded department store … And a few minutes later, we end up in a room, a dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman, right near the cash register … What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up and within minutes, you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room, okay? …”
COLLINS: “This was a jury though … They found that you sexually abused her.”
TRUMP: “… they didn’t—they said he didn’t rape her.”
COLLINS: “They did not say—”
TRUMP: “And I didn’t do anything else either … And I swear on my children, which I never do … This is a fake story, made up story. We had a horrible Clinton-appointed judge. He was horrible. He allowed her to put everything in. He allowed us to put nothing in …”
COLLINS: “… There was a taped deposition of you from October, and in it, you defended the comments that you made on that ‘Access Hollywood’ tape about being able to grab women how you want. Do you stand by those comments?”
TRUMP: “I said if you’re famous and rich or whatever I said, but I said if you’re a star, you are—and I said women let you. I didn’t say you grab. I said women let … Now, they said will you take that back? I said, look, for a million years, this is the way it’s been. I want to be honest … and I’m not referring to myself. I’m saying people that are famous, people that are stars.”
(Emphasis added.)
For those who were keeping score in Scorpion v. Frog, who was right about “grab?”

COLLINS: “But you were asked in a deposition if you consider yourself to be a star and you said yes.”
TRUMP: “People that are rich, people that are powerful, they tend to do pretty well in a lot of different ways, okay? And you would like me to take that back. I can’t take it back because it happens to be true …”
MARTA SARAVIA, SAINT ANSELM COLLEGE STUDENT: “… So, my question is, what do you think about the United States current debt situation, and how can we move forward?”
TRUMP: “…[W]e have to get the country back. We have to lower energy prices. We have to lower interest rates. Interest rates are through the roof … and we have to start paying off debt … Schumer came in with Nancy Pelosi, and they were using, we’ll violate it … they talked a whole lot different than they do right now… I say to the Republicans out there—congressmen, senators—if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re going to have to do a default. And I don’t believe they’re going to do a default because I think the Democrats will absolutely … But it’s better than what we’re doing right now because we’re spending money like drunken sailors …”
COLLINS: “So, just to be clear, Mr. President, you think the U.S. should default if the White House does not agree to the spending cuts Republicans are demanding?”
TRUMP: “Well, you might as well do it now because you’ll do it later. Because we have to save this country. Our country is dying. Our country is being destroyed by stupid people, by very stupid people.”
COLLINS: “You once said … using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge just could not happen … you said that when you were in the Oval Office.”
TRUMP: “Sure, that’s when I was president.”
COLLINS: “So why is it different now that you’re out of office?”
TRUMP: “Because now I’m not president.”
COLLINS: “The U.S. defaulting would be massively consequential …”
TRUMP: “Well, you don’t know…”
COLLINS: “… for everyone in this room, for all Americans.”
TRUMP: “You don’t know. It’s psychological … And it could be very bad. It could be, maybe, nothing …”
QUESTION: “How do you plan to appeal to women voters in New Hampshire who are concerned about the Dobbs decision and how states may change their laws?”
TRUMP: “It’s such a great question, and it was such a great victory … Getting rid of Roe v. Wade was an incredible thing for pro-life because it gave pro-life something to negotiate with … But for 50 years, this has been going on. I was able to do it, and I was very honored to do it … I happen to believe in the exceptions, the life of the mother, rape, incest, like Ronald Reagan believed in the exceptions … I consider the other side to be radical. Because the other side, under Roe v. Wade and other things … remember the debate with Hillary Clinton? And I said, ‘Rip the baby out of the womb at the end of the ninth month, they will kill the baby in the ninth month’ …What I will do is negotiate so that people are happy … We put three great justices on the Supreme Court. We have almost 300 federal judges on the Supreme Court.”
COLLINS: “… [J]ust to be clear, Mr. President, you—you would sign a federal abortion ban into law?”
TRUMP: “I want to do what’s right …. But now, for the first time, the people that are pro-life have negotiating capability, because you didn’t have it before. They could kill the baby in the ninth month or after the baby was born. Now they won’t be able to do that … President Trump is going to make a determination what he thinks is great for the country and what’s fair for the country …”
COLLINS: “… [S]ome of your Republican rivals have criticized you for not fulfilling the promises that you made on the campaign trail like finishing the border wall …”
TRUMP: “I did finish the wall … ”
COLLINS: “You didn’t finish the wall.”
TRUMP: “—hundreds of miles of wall. And I finished it … There are some areas where a lot of people are coming. You close up one and they come into another. And we started another 100 miles of wall … and then we had a rigged election, I’m sorry to say it. And—”
COLLINS: “The election was not rigged, Mr. President … You can’t keep saying that all night long …”
TRUMP: “—they decided not to finish it. It would have taken them three weeks … Look, a country has to have borders. There’s never been anything like [what] is happening to our country right now.”
COLLINS: “You built about 52 miles of new wall when you were in office—”
TRUMP: “You see this? … This is what she does … I built 30-foot walls that go down seven feet into the ground … they said, oh, he’s not building a wall, we already had a wall. Because this is the game. They’re a party of disinformation.”
COLLINS: “It’s not a game, Mr. President. It’s about 52 miles of new wall …”
BOISSONEAU: “The current administration has made it clear that we should continue to provide military equipment to Ukraine so that they can defend themselves. Do you support this decision? And how would you deal with the increasing threat posed by Vladimir Putin?”
TRUMP: “… [I]t’s an important question …We don’t have ammunition for ourselves. We’re giving away so much. But here’s the thing … If I were president, this would have never happened. And even the Democrats admit that. Putin knew it would have never happened …”
COLLINS: “Which Democrats say that, Mr. President?”
TRUMP: “And all those dead people, both Russian and Ukrainian, it wouldn’t—they wouldn’t be dead today. And all those cities that are blown up and disintegrated right to the ground, that wouldn’t have happened, OK? Now, here’s the problem. We’ve given so far $171 billion … they, meaning European Union, which is approximately the same size, altogether, as our economy, they’ve given about 20 …”
COLLINS: “… I don’t know any Democrats who have said they don’t believe Putin would’ve invaded if you were president. But her question is, would you continue to give Ukraine money and weapons if you’re elected. What’s the answer?”
TRUMP: “I have a very good relationship with President Zelenskyy because, as you know, he backed me up with the—with the phony impeachment … when he said the president didn’t do anything wrong … I was totally exonerated, by the way. Just a waste of time and money.”
COLLINS: “You were impeached over that … But the question here is, would you give Ukraine weapons and funding if you are re-elected?”
TRUMP: “… First, I’ll meet with Putin, I’ll meet with Zelenskyy. They both have weaknesses and they both have strengths. And within 24 hours that war will be settled. It will be over …”
COLLINS: “… Can you say if you want Ukraine or Russia to win this war?”
TRUMP: “I want everybody to stop dying. They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying … I’ll have that done in 24 hours. I’ll have it done. You need the power of the presidency to do it …”
COLLINS: “… When it comes to what’s happening there, when you were in office, you said that you respected President Putin.”
TRUMP: “Yes, I do.”
COLLINS: “Do you still respect him today?”
TRUMP: “He made a tremendous mistake … his mistake was going in. He would have never gone in if I was president …”
COLLINS: “Do you believe that Putin is a war criminal? He’s responsible for the deaths of thousands of Ukrainians …”
TRUMP: “I think it’s something that should not be discussed now. It should be discussed later … if you say he’s a war criminal, it’s going to be a lot tougher to make a deal to get this thing stopped …”
COLLINS: “I also want to talk about some of the other investigations that you’re facing … one of those is the special counsel’s investigation into classified documents that—were found at Mar-a-Lago. Why did you take those documents with you when you left the White House?”
TRUMP: “I had every right to under the Presidential Records Act. You have the Presidential Records Act. I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified. Biden, on the other hand, he has 1,850 boxes. He had boxes sent to Chinatown, Chinatown, where they don’t speak even English in that Chinatown we’re talking about.”
COLLINS: “I got to stop you right there, because—”
TRUMP: “And nobody talks about him … Just so you understand, I had every right to do it. I didn’t make a secret of it. You know, the boxes were stationed outside of the White House. People were taking pictures of the GSA and the various people that were moving—”
COLLINS: “I got to stop you right there, though, because the Presidential Records Act … does not say that you can take documents with you. It says, actually, that they are the property of the federal government when you leave …”
TRUMP: “… just so you understand, the Presidential Records Act is not criminal. I took the documents. I’m allowed to. You know who else took them? Obama took them. Nixon took them. Reagan took them.”
COLLINS: “Obama did not take documents … The National Archives says that President Obama did not take documents … They took documents, including President—Vice President Pence. When they realized they had documents, they turned them back over. The difference is that you waited to turn yours over, and it was a year-and-a-half effort—that included a subpoena with those documents. One question about what happened when you had those documents.”
TRUMP: “It included a raid on my house. That’s what it included.”
COLLINS: “… [Y]ou had gotten a subpoena, and they had not been turned over yet …”
TRUMP: “… The other thing, the vice president cannot declassify. He didn’t have the right to declassify… I went by the Presidential Records Act, and we were negotiating with NARA.”
COLLINS: “That’s not what the Presidential Records Act says … And I should note that there is a special counsel investigating your document situation, also President Biden’s document situation. When it comes to your documents, did you ever show those classified documents to anyone?”
TRUMP: “Not really. I would have the right to. By the way, they were declassified after—”
COLLINS: “What do you mean not really?”
TRUMP: “Not—not that I can think of. Let me just tell you, I have the absolute right to do whatever I want with them. I have the right. I was negotiating with NARA. Do you know what NARA is?”
COLLINS: “The National Archives.”
TRUMP: “Extremely—extremely left group of people …”
COLLINS: “They’re not left. They’re bipartisan …”
TRUMP: “Are you ready? Are you ready? Can I talk?”
COLLINS: “Yes. What’s the answer?”
TRUMP: “Do you mind? Can I—do you mind?”
COLLINS: “I would like for you to answer the question.”
TRUMP: “OK. It’s very simple to answer.”
COLLINS: “That’s why I asked it.”
TRUMP: “It’s very simple to—you’re a nasty person, I will tell you … I was negotiating, and we were talking to NARA—that’s Washington—to bring whatever they want. They can have whatever they want. When we left Washington, we had the boxes lined up on the sidewalk outside for everybody. People are taking pictures of them. Everybody knew we were taking those boxes. And the GSA, the Government Service, the GSA was the one taking them. They brought them down to Mar-a-Lago. We were negotiating with NARA. All of a sudden, they raid our house …”
COLLINS: “… Why did you not turn them over when you got a subpoena asking for you to turn them over?”
TRUMP: “Because we were negotiating with them …”
COLLINS: “My question for you, though, when it comes to documents, do you still have any classified documents in your possession?”
TRUMP: “Are you ready?”
COLLINS: “Do you?”
TRUMP: “No. No, I don’t have anything. I have no classified documents. And, by the way, they become automatically declassified when I took them … But why—let me ask you a question. Why is it that Biden had nine boxes in Chinatown? And he gets a lot of money from China …”
COLLINS: “There is no evidence of that, Mr. President.”
TRUMP: “And why don’t they put this guy Jack Smith and his group of—and his group of thugs …”
COLLINS: “Mr. President, I need to stop you right there, because there’s no evidence of what you just said there … But I want to ask you about another investigation that you’re facing.”
TRUMP: “You’re so wrong. You don’t know the subject.”
COLLINS: “I do know the subject. And I do know the facts, Mr. President … I want to move on to another investigation that you’re facing, which is the one that’s happening in Georgia … where they are investigating there your efforts to overturn the election results in the state of Georgia.”
TRUMP: “I did nothing wrong. It was a perfect phone call … I called questioning the election. I thought it was a rigged election. I thought it had a lot of problems … We’re having a normal call …”
COLLINS: “You asked him to find you votes … We have heard the audiotape, Mr. President. There’s an audio of you asking him to find you 11,000-something votes.”
TRUMP: “… I said, you owe me votes because the election was rigged. That election was rigged. And if this call was bad, why didn’t him and his lawyers hang up? How dare you say that? This was a perfect phone call.”
COLLINS: “Well, they were clearly concerned enough they recorded the call … You were asking him to find you votes. And I should note that there is no evidence of fraud. There is no rigged election in the state of Georgia … And I think, while we’re in front of the voters here in New Hampshire … If you are the Republican nominee and you are in that 2024 race, will you commit tonight to accepting the results of the 2024 election?”
TRUMP: “Yes, if I think it’s an honest election, absolutely, I would.”
COLLINS: “Will you commit to accepting the results of the election regardless of the outcome?”
TRUMP: “Do you want me to answer it again? If I think it’s an honest election, I would be honored to. And, right now, we are so far ahead of both Democrat and Republican. And you know what? If I don’t win, this country is going to be in big trouble. It’s so sad to see what’s happening … It’s—if it’s an honest election, correct, I would.”
(Emphasis added.)
The end. But many critics hardly took a breath before going after CNN and Collins:
CNN should be ashamed of themselves.
They have lost total control of this “town hall” to again be manipulated into platforming election disinformation, defenses of Jan 6th, and a public attack on a sexual abuse victim.
The audience is cheering him on and laughing at the host.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 11, 2023
Personally, I’m glad Kaitlan Collins allowed Donald Trump the opportunity to be the scorpion he is. As he proudly told multiple lies and provided a clear picture of who he’ll be if he occupies the White House a second time around. So, unlike AOC, I believe it’s an open question about who exactly manipulated who.
The New York Times summed up Trump’s performance this way:
“In little over an hour, Donald J. Trump suggested the United States should default on its debts for the first time in history, injected doubt over the country’s commitment to defending Ukraine from Russia’s invasion, dangled pardons for most of the Capitol rioters convicted of crimes, and refused to say he would abide by the results of the next presidential election.
“The second-term vision Mr. Trump sketched out at a CNN town-hall event on Wednesday would represent a sharp departure from core American values that have been at the bedrock of the nation for decades: its creditworthiness, its credibility with international allies and its adherence to the rule of law at home.”
Still, so many saw CNN as the hapless frog who allowed Trump a poisonous trip on its back. Author Mark Harris tweeted:
A failure this immense happens when you forget that journalism’s only allegiance is to the truth, and decide instead that your highest priorities are to have no opinion about anything and to platform lies by calling them “newsworthy” or saying, “But a lot of people believe him.”
— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) May 11, 2023
The former President’s niece, Mary Trump, was fuming, accusing CNN of collaborating with the “authoritarian wannabe,” an accomplice of the scorpion:
I’m furious. . . . CNN is anti-American.
In less than an hour, they allowed an authoritarian wannabe to lie constantly while an audience full of his followers applauded. This was not a town hall, it was a rally.
Donald bragged about overturning Roe v. Wade.
He… pic.twitter.com/Q8T3QxfMCL— Mary L Trump (@MaryLTrump) May 11, 2023
It is manifestly unfair to suggest that Kaitlan Collins sacrificed her allegiance to the truth, or that providing an opportunity for an authoritarian to further reveal himself is somehow un-American.
Brian Stelter, CNN’s former host of their Reliable Sources media show, asked the very reasonable question:
THIS is the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Look away if you choose, but this is what it’s going to be like. Should news outlets sanitize it or stare it in the face?
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 11, 2023
I want to talk about the success side of the ledger, about some of what might be about to happen because Kaitlan Collins and CNN chose to engage the ever-talkative scorpion. As the New York Times reports:
“E. Jean Carroll, who this month won $5 million in damages from former President Donald J. Trump, is now seeking a ‘very substantial’ additional amount in response to his insults on a CNN program just a day after she won her sexual abuse and defamation case.
“Ms. Carroll’s filing Monday in Manhattan federal court seeks to intensify the financial pain for Mr. Trump. The jury in her civil case found him liable on May 9 for sexual abuse and defamation. It ordered him to pay Ms. Carroll, a former advice columnist and fixture in Manhattan’s media circles, $2 million for the sexual abuse and $3 million for the defamation.”
Trump’s desire to pontificate and lecture Kaitlan Collins led him, in the words of Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe, “to dig himself a deeper hole.” According to Newsweek, Tribe was responding to Trump’s remarks about a series of events that are being investigated by several prosecutors, including Special Counsel Jack Smith:
“Smith is not just investigating whether Trump obstructed the government’s attempts to recover said documents, but also his role in what led to the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. ‘I had in mind the way CNN’s fake town hall gave Trump a platform to praise the insurrectionists as “great people”; to pledge that he would pardon “a large portion” of them who are serving time; and to make clear that he fully intended the violent attack on the Capitol and on Mike Pence that his remarks incited, refusing to express regret even for having endangered his vice president’s very life,’ Tribe told Newsweek via email Friday.
“‘Those remarks filled any remaining gaps in the proof of Trump’s intent to foment what the law defines as an insurrection,’ he added. ‘In addition, Trump’s admission that he wanted to exploit Pence’s role by working with the fake electors and his lawyers to prevent the electoral votes actually cast on December 14 [2020] from being counted amounts to a confession of seditious conspiracy in the form of an attempted coup.’”
Former Prosecutor Glenn Kirschner managed to land on both sides of the failure/success fence. According to Newsweek, Kirschner “argued that CNN had acted irresponsibly by ‘giving a microphone and a platform to a man’ who ‘tried to end American democracy,’ while saying that ‘some good did come out of it’ due to Trump’s allegedly incriminating statements. ‘Somebody probably should have pulled Donald Trump aside and said, “you know, sport, you have the right to remain silent,”’ said Kirschner.”
For me, most important are what Kirschner highlights as legal problems for Trump.
“During one moment in the broadcast, Collins asked Trump if he had shown the classified documents that he kept after his presidency ‘to anyone.’ Trump responded by saying ‘not really’ and ‘not that I can think of,’ while wrongly claiming that he would have had ‘the absolute right to do whatever I want with them.’
“‘I predict those incriminating statements will be introduced into evidence at the future trial of the United States of America versus Donald Trump,’ Kirschner said.” (Emphasis added.)
According to Newsweek, Glenn Kirschner then turned his attention to Trump incorrectly claiming that he never asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to ‘find’ votes that would help him overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
“‘We’ve all heard that recorded phone call on an endless loop—when Trump is pressuring Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes,’ said Kirschner. ‘I predict this incriminating statement will be introduced in the future criminal trial captioned Georgia versus Donald J. Trump.’” (Emphasis added.)
Kaitlan Collins’ job for CNN was to gather and present accurate news and information. A job made many times harder because she was interacting with a serial liar and a bully who refuses to respect women. Not only did she do that job but, in the process, made news herself—news that federal and state prosecutors will hopefully use to provide additional justice and accountability.
I’m guessing this particular scorpion and his attorneys are now realizing that this time they picked the wrong frogs.