CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins stood by the now-infamous 2023 Trump town hall that became the epicenter of controversy both inside and outside the network, arguing the likely Republican presidential nominee can't be ignored.
Back in May, Collins had a combative exchange with former President Trump, who broke his longstanding boycott of CNN to participate in a televised town hall with an audience full of his supporters. The two of them sparred over several topics, including Jan. 6 as well as his repeated claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
In an interview with Elle magazine published Wednesday, Collins argued Trump would have gotten the attention he seeks regardless of whether CNN did the town hall.
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Though she acknowledged that the debate over how news organizations report and cover the former president is "a conversation that we need to have on a constant basis."
"I don’t think you can ignore someone who is the Republican front-runner, and likely if it was tomorrow, the GOP nominee," Collins told Elle.
Collins' comments come as CNN notably cut away from Trump's victory speech following the Iowa caucuses on Monday.
CNN's Jake Tapper interjected as Trump began railing against illegal immigration, telling viewers, "You can hear him repeating his anti-immigrant rhetoric," before carrying on with election coverage.
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Meanwhile, MSNBC avoided the former president's speech altogether.
"There is a reason that we and other news organizations have generally stopped giving an unfiltered, live platform to remarks by former President Trump," MSNBC's Rachel Maddow told viewers. "It is not out of spite, it is not a decision that we relish, it is a decision that we regularly revisit. And honestly, earnestly, it is not an easy decision… But there is a cost to us, as a news organization, of knowingly broadcasting untrue things. That is a fundamental truth of our business and who we are."
Last year, CNN's liberal audience fumed over the Trump town hall, leading to a revolt among staffers inside the network.
One of them, veteran CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour, offered a stunning rebuke of her then-boss, CNN CEO Chris Licht, making clear she disapproved of the town hall during a speech at the Columbia Journalism School.
Licht, who had struggled to earn the trust of CNN's rank-and-file as he tried to steer the network towards being non-partisan, appeared to have completely lost the staff's faith at that point. The town hall marked the beginning of the end of his tenure; a month later, after an unflattering Atlantic profile of him was published, he was fired.
It wasn't just CNN that was blasted by liberals for "platforming" Trump. NBC News faced similar backlash in September after Trump sat down with "Meet the Press" moderator Kristen Welker.
Spanish-language network Univision was also the target of such uproar after airing Trump's interview with Mexican-American journalist Enrique Acevedo.
