Donald Trump could face questions about being found to have sexually abused E Jean Carroll when he participates in a CNN town hall on Wednesday night.
The town hall comes just one day after a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, underscoring the former president’s mounting legal threats amid his effort to recapture the White House next year.
The CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins will moderate the town hall at 8pm ET at St Anselm College in New Hampshire, where Trump will take questions from Republican and undeclared voters in the early voting state.
Town hall attendees will probably press Trump on how he intends to run for president as he faces legal threats in multiple states. On Tuesday, a New York jury concluded that Trump had sexually abused the advice columnist E Jean Carroll 27 years earlier, ordering the former president to pay her $5m in damages for her battery and defamation claims.
Because Carroll’s lawsuit was a civil case, the jury’s verdict did not involve criminal charges, but other ongoing investigations into the former president’s election lies and business practices could result in criminal convictions.
Last month, Trump pleaded not guilty in Manhattan to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records in connection to a hush-money scheme during the 2016 election. The former president also faces potential criminal charges in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the state’s election results in 2020 and a special counsel is examining Trump’s role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol and his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
Despite Trump’s many legal entanglements, he continues to lead in polls of Republican primary voters. A Morning Consult survey taken earlier this month showed Trump with a 34-point lead over his closest rival, Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, who is expected to formally launch his presidential campaign in the coming weeks.
The Wednesday town hall marks Trump’s first appearance on CNN, which he has repeatedly attacked as “fake news”, since the 2016 presidential campaign. The former president’s history with Collins specifically is also checkered, given that the Trump administration once blocked the then White House correspondent from a 2018 press conference after she asked Trump “inappropriate” questions.
The Wednesday town hall will shine a spotlight on the media’s ongoing challenges in attempting to cover Trump and his enduring sway over Republican voters as he continues to peddle lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Some commentators criticized CNN for giving Trump such a large platform to potentially repeat those lies, which contributed to the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January 2021. While a number of critics called on CNN to cancel the town hall, others suggested boycotting the program to drive down ratings.
“It’s clear to me that CNN and many other mainstream media outlets have not learned their lessons from covering Trump in 2016,” Tara Setmayer, a former House Republican communications director, recently told the Guardian. “This, in my opinion, is once again giving him legitimacy at a time when he is more extreme, more out of control and his lies are more dangerous than ever.”
The former Washington police officer and now CNN contributor Michael Fanone, who was severely beaten during the Capitol attack, fiercely criticized the network for hosting the town hall.
“Putting him onstage, having him answer questions like a normal candidate who didn’t get people killed in the process of trying to end the democracy he’s attempting to once again run, normalizes what Trump did,” Fanone wrote in an op-ed for Rolling Stone. “It sends a message that attempting a coup is just part of the process; that accepting election results is a choice; and that there are no consequences, in the media or in politics or anywhere else, for rejecting them.”
CNN defended its decision to host the town hall, arguing the American people have a right to hear answers from the current frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary.
“Our job, despite his unique circumstances, is to do what we do best,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement. “Ask tough questions, follow up and hold him accountable to give voters the information they need to sort through their choices. That is our role and our responsibility.”
