Former President Donald Trump’s recent hour-plus appearance on a cable news town hall forum drew immediate criticism from his political rivals, both declared and potential, who wasted no time in launching attacks against the Republican front-runner for the upcoming White House election.
Hosted by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, the combative forum covered a range of contentious topics, including abortion, foreign policy, and Trump’s unfounded claims of election fraud in the 2020 presidential race, as well as his sympathy for those involved in the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is expected to launch his own presidential campaign soon, seized upon the confrontational nature of the event and Trump’s fixation on rehashing the 2020 election. A committee supporting DeSantis’s prospective bid issued a statement calling the town hall an “hour of nonsense that proved Trump is stuck in the past.” The statement highlighted Trump’s sometimes unclear responses on abortion and gun control, two critical issues for Republican primary voters, questioning how such a focus aligns with his slogan of “Making America Great Again.”
For Republican voters who have reservations about Trump, his continual emphasis on the 2020 election results during the town hall has raised concerns. Successful presidential campaigns typically center on presenting a candidate’s vision for the future, such as Barack Obama’s “hope and change” or Trump’s own “Make America Great Again” in 2016. However, Trump’s bid for 2024 often seems fixated on relitigating his electoral defeat.
Meanwhile, other Trump rivals directed their criticism at a different target. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who ran against Trump in 2016 but later endorsed him, took aim at Trump’s refusal to state his preferred outcome in the war in Ukraine. “Donald Trump says he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours tonight on CNN,” Christie tweeted. “Despite how ridiculous that is to say, I suspect he would try to do it by turning Ukraine over to Putin and Russia. #Putin’sPuppet.” Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who recently launched his own presidential campaign, also criticized Trump’s stance on Ukraine, describing it as a weak position that would not lead to victory.
Although focusing on Ukraine may seem unusual given Republican voters’ increasing skepticism toward ongoing US support for the conflict, Trump might be more in line with the party’s base on this issue than his critics.
While DeSantis’s camp dismissed the entire event as nonsense, many media analysts and commentators agreed but placed the blame squarely on CNN for the format and setting of the town hall. Former Republican strategist and vocal Trump critic Steve Schmidt tweeted, “Here’s what CNN did tonight: They produced a global television event for an unhinged pathological liar in front of an audience of sycophants and called it ‘news.’ It was an abomination.” Democrat congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also criticized CNN, stating that the network should be ashamed of itself.
Democratic Party officials, on the other hand, responded with barely concealed satisfaction, promising to use clips from Trump’s performance in future attack ads. They highlighted his stance on abortion, where he claimed credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, as particularly damaging.
In response to the forum, President Joe Biden took to Twitter, asking, “Do you want four more years of that? If you don’t, pitch in to our campaign.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign team declared the evening a success, arguing that their candidate had successfully navigated what was supposed to be a hostile environment. Bryan Lanza, an adviser to Trump, told the BBC, “At the end of the day, I thought it was a win for the president. He went into what was supposed to be a hostile environment, and he survived. I suspect that this town hall is going to make him stronger.”