The CNN town hall with Donald Trump has brought out a lot of fear and fury about the network normalizing the former president's lies and not being able to fact-check him fast enough and in real time. CNN has chosen anchor and former White House correspondent Kaitlin Collins as the moderator.
During The View on Wednesday, co-host Whoopi Goldberg said that she thought town hall meetings were for people to get to know the candidate. Folks know Donald Trump.
"That's what I'm so disgusted by," said Sunny Hostin, "because, again, when someone shows you who they are, you believe them. When you show that you are an insurrectionist, that you're a liar, that you're a bigot, that you're a racist, that you're twice impeached, that you're currently a criminal defendant, and likely to be a criminal defendant in two other jurisdictions, and you grab women by their genitals. I know everything I need to know about you, right? You don't give that type of person a platform."
But Joy Behar disagreed because she said she wants more people to see Trump that way and reveal that it was the best the Republican Party could come up with.
"Let them do it. This is a free country. This is America. Let me show to the American people that he's a sociopath," Behar explained. "First of all, this forum requires a person who has empathy. You've seen Joe Biden talking to upset mothers, whose children are immunocompromised, whose kids stutter. Whatever. His heart breaks for these people. A sociopath has no empathy. That will come through. Plus the other side of it, I think Kaitlin will have a hard time, because it's hard to fact-check in real time. Remember when Candy Crowley in 2012 fact-checked [Mitt] Romney in a debate? We never saw her again after that."
Former Trump communications aid Alyssa Farah Griffin said that she's heartbroken that he's the front-runner for her party. The worst part, however, she said that it isn't a zero percent chance that he would win in 2024 after getting 74 million votes in 2020.
Sara Haines broke in to say that it's the media's purpose to push back and ask questions.
"It is not our decision as to who people vote for. Sunny, the reasons you just listed are the reasons I'm disgusted by him, would never vote for him, but I would never silence him. Our job as the media is to provide information, to push back. I would never want to put into the universe that," Haines said.
They all began shouting over each other about "giving him a pass" and how the media gave him a pass in 2016, the difficultly in fact-checking immediately, and how hostile he can be.
See the full conversation below or at the link here.
