Brooke Gladstone From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. On Wednesday night, the day after Donald Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, he told his side of the story in a CNN town hall in New Hampshire, moderated by anchor Kaitlan Collins.
TAPE That they did. They said he didn't rape her and they didn't I didn't do anything else either. You know what? Because I have no idea who she is. Mr. President, can I ask you, given your recounting....
Brooke Gladstone Trump also called Carol a whack job in anyway.
TAPE What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings him up and within minutes you're playing hanky panky in a dressing room. Okay. I don't know if you, the audience.
Brooke Gladstone Members of the New Hampshire GOP or people who plan to vote in the upcoming GOP primary were audibly on board and Trump knew what would inspire the familiar hoots and whistles playing the ref, or in this case, playing the mark. Or in this case, Kaitlan Collins.
TAPE Are you ready? Can I talk? Yeah. What's the matter? Can I. Do you mind? I would like for you to answer the question. Okay. It's very simple. That's why I asked it. It's very simple. You're a nasty person. I'll tell you.
Brooke Gladstone CNN's journalists and pundits were not amused. Here's Jake Tapper.
TAPE And the falsehoods kept coming fast and furious about the January six insurrection, about the threat to Vice President Pence, about Pence's ability to overturn the election, about COVID, about the economy and more.
Brooke Gladstone Rolling Stone reported that CNN insiders found the town hall, quote, appalling, brutal, an F-ing disgrace. And yet, CNN's Chris Licht apparently told the staff the next morning that while we all may have been uncomfortable hearing people clapping, that also was an important part of the story because those people represent a large swath of America. Let's bid for inclusivity and ratings has given new oxygen to some of the voices that were sidelined after the horror of January 6th. As has Elon Musk's project to free the bird from the woke mind virus.
TAPE Other aspects of the woke mind virus that I think are very dangerous is that you can't, you can't question things. Free speech used to be a left or a liberal value. And yet we see from the in quotes, left a desire to actually censor.
Brooke Gladstone Since acquiring Twitter, he's given free rein to right wing conspiracies in the name of free speech, which makes it a safe place for a master conspiracist newly at large.
TAPE Tucker Carlson announcing plans to relaunch his show, this time.
TAPE On Twitter. Remember, Carlson was fired from his prime time Fox News show last month. He is reportedly giving up about $25 million to break his non-compete clause.
Brooke Gladstone We're back, Tucker tweeted, along with some video apparently filmed in a home sauna. And he has the inside track on the vast list of all conspiracies, the one that undergirds all the others, the one utterly impervious to evidence.
TAPE At the most basic level, the news you consume is a lie.
Brooke Gladstone Tell it, Tucker.
TAPE A lie of the stealthy, highest and most insidious kind facts have been withheld on purpose, along with proportion and perspective. You are being manipulated.
Brooke Gladstone Some questions hang over this future enterprise contractual ones. Just after Carlson posted his video, Musk tweeted, I also want to be clear that we have not signed a deal of any kind and financial ones on Fox. Carlson's show seem to repel advertising except for this guy.
TAPE Looks like you've been sleeping well naked. He's back. The MyPillow guy.
Brooke Gladstone So Musk is fighting to hold on to Twitter's shrinking ad base, and Carlson could reportedly lose a multimillion dollar payout. But both men are very rich. And if Carlson does take his show to Twitter, he'd presumably answer to no one except Musk, who seems to be able to tolerate anything except criticism. And Carlson wants no limits on telling his truth.
TAPE There aren't many platforms left that allow free speech. The last a big one remaining in the world. The only one is Twitter. The best you can hope for in the news business at this point is the freedom to tell the fullest truth that you can't.
Brooke Gladstone In this case, his racist, sexist, paranoid hellscape of a vision that his fans find so invigorating.
TAPE But there are always limits. And you know that if you bump up against those limits often enough, you will be fired for it. That's not a gas. It's guaranteed. It's filthy, really, and it's utterly corrupting.
Brooke Gladstone It's a diabolical gift shared by Carlson and Trump alike to spin nightmares into the gold of community, face a consequence or two or three, and then sell that to their aggrieved fans as martyrdom. But as far as the CNN debacle goes, I'm giving the last bit to veteran reporter Jim Fallows and his excellent substack breaking the news. He watched as I did the inevitable viewing panel after the town hall made up of eight Trump supporters, some who'd voted before, some who hadn't. CNN's Gary Tuchman ask them.
TAPE Show of hands. Anybody think Donald Trump looks better after this town hall?
Brooke Gladstone No hands.
TAPE And if you think it looks worse,.
Brooke Gladstone Nope. Then, after reviewing some of Trump's more memorable moments, he asks.
TAPE And if you think the same thing about him as you did when you walked in.
Brooke Gladstone All eight hands. That observed Fallows was an astute panel. Nothing to see here. There was no real news for a Trump town hall. It didn't even get great ratings. The truth is, we learned far more about CNN's editorial management than we ever would or could about Trump. Coming up, it's not really about the men. This is On the Media.
