CNN is now urged to cancel Trump’s town hall

CNN is being urged to cancel Wednesday night’s town hall meeting with Donald Trump after he was found liable for sexually assaulting author E. Jean Carroll.

The former president will be at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire for a forum with voters moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.

But countless commenters took to Twitter to demand that the network cancel the event.

“Is @CNN still going to do town hall with the sexual predator twice impeached rebellious former president @realDonaldTrump? I’m not looking at it. I think it’s absurd that a major news network normalizes Trump,” wrote Alexander S. Vindman, the former Trump White House staffer who testified at Trump’s first impeachment hearing.

“Will @CNN continue tomorrow night with city hall in NH once Trump has passed sentence against him? Another reason why Trump shouldn’t get a platform from CNN or others like it’s 2016 again. #2024PresidentialElection #NHPolities,” wrote Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh.

On Tuesday night, the event was still on. “No programming changes at this point,” a CNN spokesperson told DailyMail.com.

The invited participants at City Hall are those who expect to vote in a Republican primary next year.

It is Trump’s first appearance for a CNN interview since he was elected president in 2016.

Even before Tuesday’s verdict, both sides of the political aisle questioned the event: Democrats questioned whether Trump should get the airtime, while Republicans questioned whether CNN — which Trump has long criticized as “fake news” — can be fair to the former. president.

Questions about the appropriateness of giving Trump airtime grew after the ruling in the Carroll case.

Author Michael Marshall Smith tweeted, “CNN *must* cancel its town hall with Trump tomorrow. You can NOT give him any more legitimacy. None of us can. Even the GOP.”

And author Don Winslow noted, “I can’t believe you’d follow what happened in a New York City courtroom today with a town hall for Donald Trump tomorrow. CANCEL IT.”

A jury in New York on Tuesday found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in 1996 and awarded her $5 million in damages. Jurors rejected Carroll’s claim that she was raped, but found Trump liable for sexual assault and for defaming Carroll after she made her allegations public.

Jurors debated for about three hours before reaching their verdict.

Trump chose not to attend the civil trial and was absent when the verdict was read.

But he responded in an angry post on his Truth Social platform.

“I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS,” Trump wrote in capital letters on his Truth Social website. “THIS VERDICT IS A SHAME – A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH-HUNT OF ALL TIME!”

And his campaign said in a statement, “Make no mistake, this whole bogus thing is a political push against President Trump because he is now an overwhelming front-runner to be re-elected President of the United States.”

Carroll told the jury that Trump assaulted her at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1995 or 1996, in a version of events that the jury believed at least in part, even when Trump was quoted as being a hoax.

Trump’s statement that he did not know Carroll’s identity came after he failed to correctly identify her in a photo in what may have been a key moment of the trial.

During his videotaped statement, Carroll attorney Roberta Kramer had Trump look at a black-and-white image to identify the group, which included himself.

When asked to identify a woman in the photo, Trump replied, “That’s Marla, that’s my wife.”

Only with the help of his attorney, Alina Habba, did Trump find out that it is, in fact, Carroll.

‘I don’t even know who the woman is. Let’s see, I don’t know who — it’s Marla,” Trump said.

Carroll bowed her head as the verdict in the battery charge was read. As the libel sentence was read, she bowed it again and nodded in agreement. Then she stood up and shook hands with Trump attorney Joe Tacopina.

Carroll left the court beaming from ear to ear without making a statement to the media, but was heard to say to the crowd, “We are very happy.”

Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct or assault by more than two dozen women, but this is the only case so far to end up in front of a jury, casting a new shadow over Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign

Carroll, 79, sued for assault under the Adult Survivors Act, a law passed in New York that allowed a one-year period for claims of sexual assault that would normally fall outside the statute of limitations.

Her defamation claim was based on statements made by Trump, 76, when he was president, calling her a liar.