Trump CNN Town HallTrump’s Falsehoods and Bluster Overtake CNN Town Hall

Facing questions from the audience and the moderator, Donald Trump insisted, falsely, that the 2020 election was rigged. He also dodged questions on abortion, praised Jan. 6 rioters and mocked E. Jean Carroll.

ImageDonald Trump speaks into a microphone at a lectern. He is wearing a dark suit, white shirt and red tie.
Donald Trump said he would pardon “a large portion” of the Jan. 6 rioters now in prison, and the audience cheered him on.Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times
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Trump repeats litany of false claims on 2020 election, mocks sexual abuse accuser and dodges on abortion.

Former President Donald J. Trump used a raucous town hall meeting in New Hampshire — broadcast live on CNN — to resume the lies and name-calling that marked his presidency, signaling to voters that criminal investigations, a jury holding him liable for sexual abuse and ongoing struggles with swing voters have not changed him a bit.

He pressed his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, praised the rioters who violently attacked the Capitol and suggested that Congress allow the federal government to default on its debt, at the risk of a global economic crisis. A day after a Manhattan jury ordered him to pay $5 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of sexually abusing and defaming her, he called her a “wack job,” and then called CNN’s moderator, Kaitlan Collins, “a nasty person.”

CNN had been criticized by some Democrats for giving Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, such a platform. And from the outset, the former president showed how difficult a live television interview can be, though his bluster did not seem calibrated to appeal to swing voters.

Mr. Trump had not appeared on a major television channel outside the conservative media bubble since 2020, and his prevarications, half truths, lies and name-calling on Wednesday showed he had not changed his politics ahead of his run for another presidential term.

Even after a New Hampshire Republican voter asked if he would drop his polarizing talk, he hedged, saying he would drop it if there is no election fraud. He then showed he was unrepentant about the deadly attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, praising the rioters.

“They were proud. They were there with love in their heart,” he said, adding, “That was a beautiful day.”

Among the subjects Mr. Trump addressed:

  • A day after a jury found Mr. Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, he viciously mocked his accuser, E. Jean Carroll. The audience laughed along. “I have no idea who this woman is,” he said. “This is a fake story.” He then called Ms. Carroll “a wack job.”

  • He lied continuously about the 2020 election, raising allegations on election fraud that have been repeatedly debunked. And he showed no contrition for behavior around the 2020 election that has sparked criminal investigations in Washington and the state of Georgia.

  • He counseled Congress to allow the federal government to default on its debt in June if President Biden did not come the Republicans’ way on deep spending cuts. A default could precipitate a global economic crisis. Mr. Trump shrugged: “Might as well do it now because we’re going to do it later,” he said.

  • In one of the few overtures to swing voters, Mr. Trump repeatedly dodged questions on whether he would sign a nationwide abortion ban or say at what stage of pregnancy abortion should be illegal. “What I will do is negotiate so that people are happy,” he said.

  • Mr. Trump hedged on the future of American military aid to Ukraine, saying Europe needed to spend more and that his emphasis would be ending the war, not ensuring Ukraine’s victory.

  • He also insisted that he now has no more classified documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home at Mar-a-Lago, an answer that could impact the ongoing federal investigation of his handling of highly classified records after his presidency.

  • Mr. Trump also proudly defended his administration’s policy of separating young children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. When the policy was first exposed, he had denied it was happening. On Wednesday, he said such cruelty was necessary to deter families from illegally crossing the frontier.

Shane GoldmacherMaggie Haberman
May 11, 2023, 12:01 a.m. ET

Five takeaways from Donald Trump’s unruly CNN town hall.

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Reporters at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., watched the live CNN town hall in a separate room at the event on Wednesday.Credit...Joseph Prezioso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Donald Trump is still Donald Trump.

His 70 minutes onstage in New Hampshire served as a vivid reminder that the former president has only one speed, and that his second act mirrors his first. He is, as ever, a celebrity performance artist and, even out of office, remains the center of gravity in American politics.

CNN’s decision to give him an unfiltered prime-time platform was a callback to the 2016 campaign, even as the moderator, Kaitlan Collins, persistently interjected to try to cut him off or correct him.

Mr. Trump was so focused on discussing and defending himself that he barely touched on President Biden’s record — which people close to Mr. Trump want him to focus on. But he was disciplined when it came to his chief expected primary rival.

Here are five takeaways.

Trump won’t let go of his lies about 2020 or Jan. 6

If viewers were expecting Mr. Trump to have moved on from his falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen from him, he demonstrated once again, right out of the gate, that he very much hasn’t.

The first questions asked by Ms. Collins were about Mr. Trump’s refusal to accept his loss in 2020, and his false claims of fraud.

“I think that, when you look at that result and when you look at what happened during that election, unless you’re a very stupid person, you see what happens,” Mr. Trump said, calling the election he lost “rigged.”

Mr. Trump later said he was “inclined” to pardon “many” of the rioters arrested on Jan. 6, 2021, after the attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob during certification of President Biden’s Electoral College win. His avoidance of an unequivocal promise pleased people close to him.

He also came armed with a list of his own Twitter posts and statements from that day — an idea that was his, a person familiar with the planning said. He lied about his inaction that day as Ms. Collins pressed him about what he was doing during the hours of violence. And he said he did not owe Vice President Mike Pence, whose life was threatened by the mob, an apology.

As time has worn on, Mr. Trump has increasingly wrapped his arms around what took place at the Capitol and incorporated it into his campaign. Wednesday night was no exception.

“A beautiful day,” he said of Jan. 6.

It was a reminder that embracing the deadly violence of that day — at least for Republicans — is no longer seen as disqualifying. Privately, Mr. Trump’s team said they were happy with how he handled the extensive time spent on the postelection period during the town hall.

The G.O.P. audience stacked the deck, but revealed where the base is

The audience’s regular interruptions on behalf of Mr. Trump were like a laugh track on a sitcom. It built momentum for him in the room — and onscreen for the television audience — and stifled Ms. Collins as she repeatedly tried to interrupt him with facts and correctives.

No matter how vulgar, profane or politically incorrect Mr. Trump was, the Republican crowd in New Hampshire audibly ate up the shtick of the decades-long showman.

He would pardon a “large portion” of Jan. 6 rioters. Applause.

He mocked the detailed accusations of rape from E. Jean Carroll as made up “hanky-panky in a dressing room.” Laughter. No matter that a New York jury held him liable for sexual abuse and defamation this week, awarding Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages.

Calling Ms. Carroll a “wack job.” Applause and laughs.

Flip-flopping on using the debt ceiling for leverage, because “I’m not president.” More laughs.

The cheers revealed the current psyche of the Republican base, which is eager for confrontation: with the press, with Democrats, with anyone standing in the way of Republicans taking power.

It made for tough sledding for Ms. Collins, who was like an athlete playing an away game on hostile turf: She had to battle the crowd and the candidate simultaneously.

“You’re a nasty person,” Mr. Trump said to her at one point, echoing the line he used against Hillary Clinton in 2016.

The town-hall format felt like a set piece for Mr. Trump that he leveraged to cast himself as both the putative Republican incumbent — “Mister president,” he was repeatedly addressed as — and the outsider, recreating conditions from his two previous campaigns.

Republicans cheered, but so did Democrats looking to the general election

President Biden’s team had changed the televisions on Air Force One from CNN to MSNBC as he returned from New York on Wednesday evening. But that didn’t mean his political team was not eagerly watching the town hall unfold, and cheering along with the Republican audience.

Mr. Trump defended Jan. 6 as a “beautiful day.” He hailed the overturning of Roe v. Wade as a “great victory.” He wouldn’t say if he hoped Ukraine would win the war against Russia. He talked again about how the rich and famous get their way. “Women let you,” he said. And he refused to rule out reimposing one of the most incendiary and divisive policies of his term in office: purposefully separating families at the border.

Mr. Trump’s answers played well in the hall but could all find their way into Democratic messaging in the next 18 months.

Late Wednesday, the Biden campaign was already figuring out what segments could be turned quickly into digital ads, seeing Mr. Trump staking out positions that would turn off the kind of swing voters that Mr. Biden won in 2020.

Shortly after the event ended, Mr. Biden issued a tweet. “Do you want four more years of that?” it read. It was a request for donations. It was also a reminder how much of the Biden 2024 campaign is likely to be about Mr. Trump.

Trump aggressively dodged taking a stance on a federal abortion ban

Mr. Trump is perhaps the single Republican most responsible for the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last year. He appointed three of the court’s justices who powered the majority opinion. But he has privately blamed abortion politics for Republican underperformance in the 2022 midterms and has treaded carefully in the early months of his 2024 run.

Before the town hall, his team spent considerable time honing his answer to a question they knew he would be asked: Would he support a federal ban, and at how many weeks?

His repeated dodges and euphemisms were hard to miss on Wednesday.

“Getting rid of Roe v. Wade was an incredible thing for pro-life,” he began.

That was about as specific as he would get. He said he was “honored to have done what I did” — a line Democrats had quickly flagged as potential fodder for future ads — and that it was a “great victory.”

Mr. Trump’s Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis, recently signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida, getting to Mr. Trump’s right on an issue that could resonate with evangelical voters. Mr. Trump did not even mention Mr. DeSantis until more than an hour into the event, and only after prodding from a voter. “I think he ought to relax and take it easy and think about the future,” Mr. Trump urged.

In refusing to say if he would sign a federal ban, Mr. Trump tried to cast Democrats as radical and pledged that he supported exemptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. “What I’ll do is negotiate so people are happy,” he said.

“I just want to give you one more chance,” Ms. Collins pressed.

He dodged one final time. “Make a deal that’s going to be good,” he said.

He deepened his legal jeopardy with comments on investigations

The most heated exchange that Mr. Trump had with Ms. Collins was over the special counsel investigation into his possession of hundreds of presidential records, including more than 300 individual classified documents, at his private club, Mar-a-Lago, after he left office.

And it was the area in which he walked himself into the biggest problems.

“I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified,” said Mr. Trump, who has maintained, despite contradictions from his own former officials, that he had a standing order automatically declassifying documents that left the Oval Office and went to the president’s residence.

“I had every right to do it, I didn’t make a secret of it. You know, the boxes were stationed outside the White House, people were taking pictures of it,” Mr. Trump said, intimating that people were somehow aware that presidential material and classified documents were in them (they were not).

In what will be of great interest to the special counsel, Jack Smith, Mr. Trump would not definitively rule out whether he showed classified material to people, something investigators have queried witnesses about, in particular in connection with a map with sensitive intelligence.

“Not really,” he hedged, adding, “I would have the right to.” At another point he declared, “I have the right to do whatever I want with them.”

He also defended himself for a call he had with Georgia’s secretary of state in which he said he was trying to “find” enough votes to win. “I didn’t ask him to find anything,” Mr. Trump said.

There are few issues that worry the Trump team and the former president as much as the documents investigation, and Mr. Trump wore that on his face and in his words on the stage in New Hampshire.

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Reid Epstein
May 10, 2023, 9:33 p.m. ET

Shortly after the town hall ended, President Biden weighed in on Twitter with something of a campaign tag line: “It’s simple, folks. Do you want four more years of that?”

Reid Epstein
May 10, 2023, 9:17 p.m. ET

On Air Force One, the assembled press requested that the TVs be switched to CNN for the town hall. The channel was changed. During the flight from New York, Biden’s senior adviser, Anita Dunn, entered the press cabin, looked at the televisions and left, according to a pool report.

Linda Qiu
May 10, 2023, 9:12 p.m. ET

“You know who else took them? Obama took them.”

— Former President Donald J. Trump

This is false.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly and wrongly compared his handling of classified documents with that of his predecessor.

After his presidency, Mr. Trump took a trove of classified documents — including 18 marked as top secret — to his Mar-a-Lago estate.

In contrast, the National Archives and Records Administration, which preserves and maintains records after a president leaves office, has said in a statement that former President Barack Obama turned over his documents, classified and unclassified, as required by law.

The agency has also said it is not aware of any missing boxes of presidential records from the Obama administration.

Mr. Trump then falsely claimed that President Biden “took more than anybody” or about 1,800 boxes. But that number of boxes refers to a collection of documents Mr. Biden had donated to the University of Delaware in 2012 from his tenure as a senator representing the state from 1973 to 2009. Unlike presidential documents, which must be released to NARA once a president leaves office, documents from members of Congress are not covered by the Presidential Records Act. It is not uncommon for senators and representatives to give such items to research or historical facilities.

The university agreed to not give the public access to Mr. Biden’s documents from his time as senator until two years after he retired from public life. But the F.B.I. did search the collection in February as part of the special counsel investigation and in cooperation with Mr. Biden’s legal team. The New York Times reported at the time that the material was still being analyzed but did not appear to contain any classified documents.

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Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:12 p.m. ET

The Trump campaign is out with a statement saying that Trump “laid out his vision to reverse the Biden Decline.” Yet he spent relatively little time on Biden.

Michael Grynbaum
May 10, 2023, 9:12 p.m. ET

CNN has cut away to analysis from its anchors Anderson Cooper and Jake Tapper, who tells viewers, “The falsehoods kept coming fast and furious.”

Reid Epstein
May 10, 2023, 9:11 p.m. ET

It remains to be seen how this sort of Trump performance will play in the Republican primary, but it’s not likely to be helpful in the general election. Allies of his who echoed false claims about the 2020 election lost competitive 2022 elections in battleground states. This denial and relitigating of his defeat to President Biden is kryptonite to voters in the political middle who determine elections in key states.

Jonathan Swan
May 10, 2023, 9:10 p.m. ET

The crowd is raucous, like a rally crowd cheering Trump.

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Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:10 p.m. ET

Trump shook Collins’s hand and said, “Good job.” That’s it.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:10 p.m. ET

And now it’s abruptly over.

Shane Goldmacher
May 10, 2023, 9:10 p.m. ET

More than an hour into this town hall, Trump first mentions his leading Republican rival in the polls, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, and it comes only after a voter brings DeSantis up.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:09 p.m. ET

Trump won’t commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election if he’s the nominee.

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Jonathan Weisman
May 10, 2023, 9:09 p.m. ET

Trump’s frustration with Kaitlan Collins’s corrections and questioning appears to have him flustered.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:09 p.m. ET

Trump is now bellowing at Collins on a topic he’s facing a potential indictment over: his call to Georgia’s top election official pressuring him to "find" votes.

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Credit...Cheriss May for The New York Times
Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:06 p.m. ET

That’s contrary to what he has claimed before, which is that they were declassified while he was president.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:06 p.m. ET

This is bad territory for Trump. “I don’t have anything,” Trump says, claiming the documents were “automatically declassified” when he took them.

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Michael Grynbaum
May 10, 2023, 9:06 p.m. ET

Trump’s growing irritation with Collins boiled over in that tough moment, when he called her a “nasty person.” The audience offered no support for the CNN anchor, applauding Trump’s insult. Collins did not react.

Jonathan Swan
May 10, 2023, 9:06 p.m. ET

This section — Collins’s questioning over the classified documents — is potentially a legally dangerous moment for Trump. Especially his ambiguous comment about whether he showed classified documents to other people.

Linda Qiu
May 10, 2023, 9:05 p.m. ET

“I got with NATO — I got them to put up hundreds of millions of dollars that they weren’t paying under Obama and Bush and all these other presidents.”

— Former President Donald J. Trump

This is misleading.

Under guidelines for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, members agreed to commit a minimum of 2 percent of G.D.P. on their own defense, but few nations actually do so. They do not “pay” the alliance directly.

NATO members agreed that nations currently not meeting the 2 percent goal would do so in the next decade, and that nations meeting it would continue to do so — but they made this pledge in September 2014, years before Mr. Trump became president.

“And the reason for this is not Donald Trump — it’s Vladimir Putin, Russia’s actions in Crimea and aggressive stance,” said Ivo H. Daalder, a NATO ambassador under President Barack Obama, previously told The New York Times.

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Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:05 p.m. ET

Trump’s statement that he took the documents is contrary to a letter one of his lawyers sent to Congress recently, claiming the documents had been accidentally sent to Mar-a-Lago.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:05 p.m. ET

Trump uses the same line on Collins he used on Hillary Clinton. “You’re a nasty person,” he tells her, to applause from the crowd.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:03 p.m. ET

“Not really,” Trump says when asked if he showed people classified material after leaving office, as prosecutors believe he may have done.

Reid Epstein
May 10, 2023, 9:03 p.m. ET

An hour into this event, Trump finally takes a shot at President Biden, accusing him of improperly taking classified documents. (Biden’s lawyers reported the documents themselves, unlike Trump, whose home was raided by the F.B.I. to retrieve the documents.)

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Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:02 p.m. ET

“I took the documents, I’m allowed to,” Trump says.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 9:02 p.m. ET

They are discussing the investigation into Trump’s possession of presidential documents at Mar-a-Lago.

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Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times
Michael Grynbaum
May 10, 2023, 9:00 p.m. ET

Trump and Collins are now standing up.

Linda Qiu
May 10, 2023, 8:57 p.m. ET

“I built the wall. I built hundreds of miles of wall and I finished it.”

— Former President Donald J. Trump

This is false.

The Trump administration constructed 453 miles of border wall over four years, and a vast majority of the new barriers reinforced or replaced existing structures. Of that, about 47 miles were new primary barriers. The United States’ southwestern border with Mexico is over 1,900 miles, and during his campaign, Mr. Trump had vowed to build a wall across the entire border and make Mexico pay for it. Mexico did not pay for the barriers that had been constructed.

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Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 8:55 p.m. ET

Collins asks if Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. Trump says that should be discussed “later,” in the hopes of forging a deal to end the war.

Linda Qiu
May 10, 2023, 8:55 p.m. ET

“This woman, I don’t know her. I never met her. I have no idea who she is.”

— Former President Donald J. Trump

This is false.

A Manhattan jury on Tuesday found that Mr. Trump had sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll, a writer. Regardless of whether Mr. Trump remembers meeting Ms. Carroll, there is clear evidence that the two have met: a black-and-white photo of the two along with their spouses at the time.

Jonathan Swan
May 10, 2023, 8:55 p.m. ET

Trump is now saying that Putin made a “tremendous mistake” by invading Ukraine. That is different from his initial commentary on the invasion, which he described as an act of genius.

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Reid Epstein
May 10, 2023, 8:54 p.m. ET

Trump has not spent much time attacking President Biden tonight, even though he’s had plenty of chances to do so. He was served up a chance to criticize Biden on support for the war in Ukraine, and he instead repeated his assertion that European countries should invest more in the conflict.

Jonathan Swan
May 10, 2023, 8:54 p.m. ET

This Ukraine exchange with Collins is the most heated Trump has been during the debate.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 8:53 p.m. ET

“I want them to stop dying,” Trump says, pressed repeatedly on whether he wants Ukraine to win the war.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 8:53 p.m. ET

Collins’s question — does Trump want Ukraine to win the war? — is different from how the question has been asked before.

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Jonathan Swan
May 10, 2023, 8:53 p.m. ET

Trump refuses to say that he wants Ukraine to win the war.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 8:52 p.m. ET

Trump repeatedly dodges whether he would continue giving aid to Ukraine against Russia.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 8:50 p.m. ET

Asked whether he would institute family separation for migrants at the border again, Trump refuses to answer, saying that when there’s such a policy, “They don’t come.”

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 8:48 p.m. ET

Trump again falsely says the election was rigged. Collins protests and says, “You can’t keep saying that all night long.”

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Jonathan Swan
May 10, 2023, 8:46 p.m. ET

Advisers to Trump are thrilled at how this is going so far for him. They can’t believe he is getting an hour on CNN with an audience that cheers his every line and laughs at his every joke.

Reid Epstein
May 10, 2023, 8:45 p.m. ET

Trump has to hope that the rest of this event focuses on issues more to his liking, such as immigration, inflation, the economy and President Biden’s handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. It will also be interesting to see how much Trump is pressed on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Linda Qiu
May 10, 2023, 8:45 p.m. ET

“If you look at Chicago, Chicago has the single toughest gun policies in the nation. They are so tough you can’t breathe, New York, too, and other places also. All those places are the worst and most dangerous places so that’s not the answer.”

— Former President Donald J. Trump

This is misleading.

Opponents of firearm restrictions frequently cite Chicago as a case study of how tough gun laws do little to prevent homicides. This argument, however, relies on faulty assumptions about the city’s gun laws and gun violence.

There were more gun murders in Chicago than in any other city in the United States in 2020, fueling the perception that it is the gun violence capital of the country. But Chicago is also the third-largest city in the country. Adjusted by population, the gun homicide rate was 25.2 per 100,000, the 26th highest in the country in 2020, according to data compiled by the gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety.

The three cities with the highest gun homicide rates — Jackson, Miss., Gary, Ind., and St. Louis — had rates double that of Chicago’s. All are in states with more permissive gun laws than Illinois.

Chicago’s reputation for having the strictest gun control measures in the country is outdated. The Supreme Court nullified the city’s handgun ban in 2010. An appeals court also struck down a ban on carrying concealed weapons in Illinois in 2012, and the state began allowing possession of concealed guns in 2013, as part of the court decision.

Today, Illinois has tougher restrictions than most states, but it does not lead the pack, ranking No. 7 in Everytown’s assessment of the strength of state gun control laws, and No. 8 in a report card released by the Giffords Law Center, another gun control group. Conversely, the state ranked No. 41 in an assessment on gun rights from the libertarian Cato Institute.

Gun control proponents have also argued that the patchwork nature of gun laws in the country makes it difficult for a state like Illinois with tough restrictions on the books to enforce those in practice. A 2017 study commissioned by the city of Chicago found, for example, that 60 percent of guns used in crimes and recovered in Chicago came from out of state, with neighboring Indiana as the primary source.

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Linda Qiu
May 10, 2023, 8:42 p.m. ET

“We created the greatest economy in history. A big part of that economy was I got you the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country, bigger than the Reagan cuts.”

— Former President Donald J. Trump

This is false.

Average growth, even before the coronavirus pandemic decimated the economy, was lower under Mr. Trump than under Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan.

Nor were the tax cuts Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017 the “biggest” ever. According to a report from the Treasury Department, the 1981 Reagan tax cut is the largest as a percentage of the economy (2.9 percent of gross domestic product) and by the reduction in federal revenue (a 13.3 percent decrease). The Obama tax cut in 2012 amounted to the largest cut in inflation-adjusted dollars: $321 billion a year. By comparison, Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cut was about $150 billion annually and amounted to about 0.9 percent of gross domestic product.

Mr. Trump also claimed to have presided over “zero” inflation. Although some months had zero inflation or even price declines as the coronavirus pandemic hit, the Consumer Price Index increased 1.2 percent overall in 2020, the last full year he was in office, and had risen at a 1.4 percent annual rate in January 2021, his last month as president.

Maggie Haberman
May 10, 2023, 8:41 p.m. ET

Trump’s avoidance of taking a position on a federal abortion ban may not hurt him in a Republican primary, but his comment essentially telling Collins he’ll decide what’s best when he’s in office is going to be an added motivator for voters who are livid at the end of Roe v. Wade.

Michael Grynbaum
May 10, 2023, 8:40 p.m. ET

Kaitlan Collins, in one of the biggest moments of her TV career, has calmly corrected many of Trump’s false statements and prompted him to clarify his policy positions. So far, she has avoided being lured into a major confrontation.

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Jonathan Weisman
May 10, 2023, 8:40 p.m. ET

“What I will do is negotiate so that people are happy,” he says as he dodges the question about signing a federal abortion ban.

Linda Qiu
May 10, 2023, 8:36 p.m. ET

Pence “should have put the votes back to the state legislatures and I think we would have had a different outcome.”

— Former President Donald J. Trump

This is false.

The vice president does not have the power or legal authority to alter the presidential election, as former Vice President Mike Pence has repeatedly and correctly noted.

A select House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021 found that John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who was the chief architect of Mr. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, had admitted to Mr. Trump two days before Jan. 6 that his plan to have Mr. Pence to halt the vote certification process was illegal.

Linda Qiu
May 10, 2023, 8:28 p.m. ET

“I offered them 10,000 soldiers. I said it could be 10, it could be more, but I offered them specifically 10,000 soldiers.”

— Former President Donald J. Trump

This is false.

Mr. Trump was referring to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when his loyalists stormed the Capitol in a bid to stop the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s election victory. There is no evidence that Mr. Trump ever made a request for 10,000 National Guard troops or that Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected such a demand. The speaker of the House does not control the National Guard.

Mr. Trump also claimed that the acting defense secretary at the time, Christopher C. Miller, backed up his account. Vanity Fair reported in 2021 that Mr. Trump had floated the 10,000 figure to Mr. Miller the night of Jan. 5. But in 2022, Mr. Miller told a House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6 that he was “never given any direction or order or knew of any plans of that nature.”

There is no record of Mr. Trump making such a request either. The Pentagon’s timeline of events leading up to the riot notes that the Defense Department reviewed a plan to activate 340 members of the District of Columbia’s National Guard, “if asked.” But the timeline makes no mention of a request for 10,000 troops by Mr. Trump. Nor did a Pentagon inspector general report on the breach, which instead referred to suggestions by Mr. Trump that his rally on Jan. 6 had been conducted safely. A Pentagon spokesman also told The Washington Post that it had “no record of such an order being given.”

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Linda Qiu
May 10, 2023, 8:20 p.m. ET

“We got 12 million more votes than we had — as you know — in 2016.”

— Former President Donald J. Trump

This is misleading.

Mr. Trump received 74 million votes in the 2020 presidential election, 12 million more than he received in the 2016 election. But, of course, President Biden received even more votes in 2020: 81 million.

Mr. Trump then repeated his lie that the 2020 election was rigged. As the CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins noted, no evidence has surfaced to support his false claims of an army of people voting multiple times, dead people voting and missing ballots.

Jonathan Weisman
May 10, 2023, 7:45 p.m. ET

A DeSantis-aligned super PAC criticizes Trump and CNN.

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Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is expected to announce his 2024 campaign soon, at an event for the Republican Party in Rothschild, Wis., last week.Credit...Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

A super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida took a swing at both Donald J. Trump and CNN ahead of Wednesday night’s town hall, painting them as failing partners seeking the favor of the Washington elite.

“The Trump town hall on CNN is a true marriage of equals: a candidate who has lost his luster appearing on a network that’s lost its ratings,” Chris Jankowski, the chief executive of Never Back Down, wrote in a statement. “Both ignore a key fact: 2024 isn’t 2016. The old gimmicks and tired lines don’t work anymore.”

Ahead of what is expected to be an official entry into the 2024 Republican race for the presidential nomination, Mr. DeSantis has been struggling with sagging poll numbers and a dearth of attention as Mr. Trump once again swallows the media’s focus. CNN’s decision to give Mr. Trump his own prime-time town hall exemplified Mr. DeSantis’s problem, but the governor’s well-funded super PAC, ostensibly independent of the candidate, tried to turn Mr. Trump’s appearance into a boost for its candidate.

Mr. Jankowski’s lengthy statement was careful not to alienate Mr. Trump’s core of support. It did not mention the jury verdict on Tuesday, which found the former president liable for sexual assault, nor did it challenge Mr. Trump on policy. It did try to frame Mr. DeSantis as the former president’s heir apparent.

“It’s stunning to see Donald Trump transform into a made-for-CNN candidate, desperately seeking a national town hall, the most elite of elite forums,” the statement said. “After all, in 2016, it was Donald Trump who electroshocked the Republican Party out of its elitism.”

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Jonathan Weisman
May 10, 2023, 7:40 p.m. ET

A sex abuse verdict looms over Trump’s town hall.

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E. Jean Carroll, center, leaving court in New York on Tuesday afternoon.Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

Donald J. Trump’s decision to appear Wednesday night on a CNN town hall meeting long preceded the jury verdict on Tuesday that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation — but that verdict is likely to loom large as the former president takes his case for a second term to a broader cable news audience.

The Manhattan jury decided that the writer E. Jean Carroll had not proved that Mr. Trump raped her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store, but she had sufficiently proved that he had sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, then defamed her after she came forward with her story. Jurors awarded Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages.

Mr. Trump has long maintained his innocence, and after the jury’s defamation decision, he kept on attacking Ms. Carroll, who he said “made a false and totally fabricated accusation.” He promised to appeal.

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Joseph Tacopina, a lawyer for Donald Trump, said outside federal court on Tuesday that his client would appeal.Credit...Brittainy Newman for The New York Times

At the core of the former president’s defense are two positions: that the jury found him not liable for rape, yet somehow liable for defaming the woman who accused him of rape; and that Democratic state lawmakers in New York passed a new law specifically to allow Ms. Carroll, a critic of Mr. Trump, to sue him.

The first defense ignores the fact that jurors were considering three types of battery for which Mr. Trump might be liable under New York law: rape, sexual abuse and forcible touching. Jurors did not conclude that Mr. Trump had engaged in forcible sexual intercourse, but they did believe he subjected Ms. Carroll to sexual contact by physical force. His repeated statements that she made up the entire altercation were enough to land him a defamation judgment, rape or not.

And while it is true that Ms. Carroll filed her civil suit under the Adult Survivors Act, which Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York signed last year, Mr. Trump was not the target of that law, which offered a one-time opportunity for abuse victims to file civil lawsuits in New York, even if any statutes of limitations have run out.

Those who pushed the state legislation included Ms. Carroll but also Drew Dixon, who said she had long suppressed her claim that the media mogul Russell Simmons had raped her; Evelyn Yang, wife of the former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who said she was abused by a former Columbia University gynecologist, Robert Hadden; and former female inmates at state prisons who hoped to sue the New York Department of Corrections for abuses under its watch.

Maggie HabermanJonathan Swan
May 10, 2023, 12:00 p.m. ET

Donald Trump’s camp sees the CNN town hall as a calculated risk.

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Trump supporters before a campaign event in New Hampshire last month. Donald J. Trump will appear at a CNN town hall on Wednesday night, answering questions from New Hampshire voters.Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times

Follow for live updates on the Trump CNN town hall meeting.

No questions will be off-limits on Wednesday night at the CNN town hall with Donald J. Trump. He can put 15 people of his choice in the audience but none are allowed to ask questions. And his team has not had a hand in guiding how the event will go, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

All of this adds up to no small amount of risk for the former president during the prime-time event, his advisers say — a risk they see as worth taking.

They expect tough questions from the CNN anchor and moderator, Kaitlan Collins — and have been anticipating questions about abortion, investigations into Mr. Trump and a civil jury’s finding him liable for defamation and sexual abuse in the lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll in Manhattan, a verdict handed down a day before the town hall.

But they also know he will mostly be facing questions from an audience of Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters in New Hampshire, the state hosting the first primary of the 2024 Republican presidential contest. It was the first state Mr. Trump won in 2016 and a place where he still enjoys popularity among Republicans.

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Mr. Trump’s advisers say he needs to seek a broader audience as he campaigns for the Republican nomination.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

Since the end of his presidency, Mr. Trump has largely been relegated to appearing on right-wing networks and podcasts. He has taken reporters aboard his plane now that he’s a candidate, but his team recognizes that he needs to start venturing beyond the fringe to gain access to a broader audience, particularly as a contrast to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who avoids the mainstream media. And CNN was willing to provide him that opportunity, several advisers said. The town hall will be Mr. Trump’s first appearance on CNN since the 2016 campaign.

“You can’t just stay on certain channels all the time,” said a person close to Mr. Trump who was not authorized to speak publicly about the town hall planning. “You’ve got to start venturing out. And that’s a clear contrast to what other candidates may or may not do.”

The town hall has been months in the making.

Earlier this year, Mr. Trump’s team had wanted to participate in a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity, a popular pro-Trump anchor. But Mr. Hannity ultimately did an interview with Mr. Trump instead, and the town hall never materialized. Through a Fox News press officer, Mr. Hannity denied there was any obstacle to a Fox town hall, insisting Mr. Trump “preferred to do an interview on this occasion and said he would do a town hall as his campaign progressed.”

Several weeks after Mr. Trump declared his candidacy in November, CNN was in touch with the former president’s team about a possible interview, as the network has held with other presidential candidates, said two people familiar with the discussions who requested anonymity to describe the talks. As the conversations about a Fox News town hall fizzled, the Trump team began negotiating with CNN in earnest.

“There is no change to our format because of the unique nature of Donald Trump’s candidacy,” said David Chalian, CNN’s political director. “CNN’s role of bringing a candidate into direct touch with voters in this town hall format has been and continues to be a staple of our presidential campaign coverage.”

Mr. Trump is not prone to practice sessions. His debate preparations during his two previous presidential campaigns often devolved into him telling old war stories or yelling at aides. For this occasion, Mr. Trump held an informal session with a handful of aides, including his speechwriter, Vince Haley, on Monday in his office at Mar-a-Lago, according to multiple people briefed on the gathering. No one was assigned to play Ms. Collins. Aides have instead discussed questions that might arise.

The Trump team has spent considerable time discussing the politics of abortion. Mr. Trump is more responsible than anyone — with the possible exception of the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell — for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

Yet Mr. Trump himself has at times been privately ambivalent about the consequences of the decision, and has blamed abortion politics for Republicans’ dismal performance in the 2022 midterm elections. He discussed the subject as if he were a pundit or bystander rather than the architect of Roe v. Wade’s demise. And he has troubled some prominent anti-abortion activists in the way he has handled questions about abortion policy since the midterms. Mr. Trump has refused to say he would support a national abortion ban, instead saying abortion policy should be left to the states.

On Monday, Mr. Trump met at Mar-a-Lago with leaders of the anti-abortion movement who were worried about his recent comments, including Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. In the meeting, Mr. Trump said his position on abortion was the same as it was when he first ran for president and the same as what he endorsed in office, according to a person with direct knowledge of the conversation. Back then, Mr. Trump supported a national ban on most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. As a result of Mr. Trump’s comments in the meeting, Ms. Dannenfelser released a statement praising him.

But in the CNN town hall, Mr. Trump might not stipulate a number of weeks at which abortion should be illegal, according to two people familiar with Mr. Trump’s thinking. Instead, he is expected to take credit for keeping his anti-abortion promises in office and mention that he supports “the three exceptions”: when necessary to save the life of the mother or when the cases involve rape or incest. He may then turn to attacking Democrats by describing horrific images of late-term abortions, similar to what he did in a 2016 debate with his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

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Michael M. Grynbaum
May 10, 2023, 3:00 a.m. ET

Donald Trump … on CNN? A live town hall reignites a debate.

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Former President Donald Trump at a campaign event in New Hampshire last month.Credit...Sophie Park for The New York Times

Follow for live updates on the Trump CNN town hall meeting.

Should a leading presidential contender be given the opportunity to speak to voters on live television?

What if that contender is former President Donald J. Trump?

Mr. Trump is set to appear on CNN on Wednesday night for a town hall in New Hampshire — his first live appearance on a major TV news network (besides those controlled by Rupert Murdoch) since 2020 — and a torrid media debate is swirling.

Joy Reid, an anchor on rival MSNBC, derided the event as “a pretty open attempt by CNN to push itself to the right and make itself attractive and show its belly to MAGA.” Her colleague Chris Hayes called the town hall “very hard to defend.” Critics asked why CNN would provide a live platform to someone who defended rioters at the United States Capitol and still insists the 2020 election was rigged.

Those objections intensified on Tuesday after Mr. Trump was found liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of the writer E. Jean Carroll. “Is @CNN still going to do a town hall with the sexual predator twice impeached insurrectionist?” Alexander S. Vindman, the Army colonel who was a witness in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial, wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Trump is also, at the moment, the highest-polling Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential campaign and the de facto leader of his party. Some veteran TV journalists wonder: What’s the alternative?

“So no more live political events, because politicians can be nasty? Because politicians can tell lies?” Ted Koppel, the former “Nightline” anchor, said in an interview. “I’m not sure that news organizations should necessarily be in the business of making ideological judgments. Is he a legitimate object of news attention? You bet.”

Wednesday’s town hall, where Mr. Trump will field questions from Republican and undecided voters, is in some ways a stress test — and an unsettling preview — for the television news industry as it prepares to cover a presidential contest that is likely, in its early stages at least, to prominently include Mr. Trump.

Any telecast featuring the former president is bound to be divisive. Were anchors too harsh? Too lenient? How quickly did they react to false claims? And foes of Mr. Trump will cringe at seeing him on air at all.

But Bob Schieffer, the longtime CBS anchor, said that interviews of important political figures were necessary. “There’s no question he might well get the nomination,” he said of Mr. Trump. “We’re in the business of telling people who’s running for what and what they stand for.”

CNN faced criticism in 2016 for granting Mr. Trump hours of unfettered airtime during the Republican primary. Jeff Zucker, the network’s president at the time, later acknowledged he had overdone it.

Mr. Trump then spent years vilifying the network, leading chants of “CNN sucks” and barring its correspondent Jim Acosta from the White House. A YouGov poll last month found that CNN was the country’s most polarizing major media source, with the widest gap between the portion of Democrats who trust it and the portion of Republicans who don’t.

Mr. Trump last appeared on CNN in 2016, and since then much has changed. CNN was acquired by Warner Bros. Discovery, and Mr. Zucker was replaced; his successor, Chris Licht, pledged to broaden the network’s appeal. He is backed by David Zaslav, the Warner chief executive, who has batted away objections to Wednesday’s Trump town hall.

“The U.S. has a divided government; we need to hear both voices,” Mr. Zaslav said last week on CNBC, where he was questioned repeatedly about the decision to host Mr. Trump. “When we do politics, we need to represent both sides. I think it’s important for America.”

Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has soured on Fox News, irked by Mr. Murdoch’s support for a potential Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida. And he has taken notice of Mr. DeSantis’s aversion to appearing on mainstream outlets like CNN.

Mr. Trump and CNN are not exactly reconciled. There is the awkward fact that Mr. Trump still has a pending $475 million defamation lawsuit against the network. And in a missive on Truth Social on Tuesday, the former president told fans that CNN was “rightfully desperate to get those fantastic (TRUMP!) ratings once again.” He added: “Could be the beginning of a New & Vibrant CNN, with no more Fake News, or it could turn into a disaster for all, including me. Let’s see what happens?”

As olive branches go, it felt a bit spindly. But David Chalian, CNN’s political director, shrugged it off. “We never stopped covering him as president despite everything he said about us,” Mr. Chalian said in an interview. “We never stopped doing our jobs.”

CNN executives will air Mr. Trump’s remarks live, without any time delay. That means if Mr. Trump makes a false claim, it will be up to the moderator, Kaitlan Collins, or an onscreen graphic to correct him in real time. Mr. Trump’s last three interviews on Fox News were prerecorded. (Fox recently paid $787.5 million to settle a defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems, after several of its anchors amplified Mr. Trump’s falsehoods about the company.)

In the interview, Mr. Chalian said that CNN was “in the business of live news events — that’s what we do.” He added, “I obviously can’t control what Donald Trump says, but what we can control is our journalism.”

CNN did not agree to preconditions for the town hall, Mr. Chalian said — “No question is off the table” — and Ms. Collins has spent several days preparing for the broadcast. Selecting Ms. Collins to moderate is in keeping with Mr. Licht’s emphasis on reporting over punditry; Ms. Collins is best known for day-to-day White House coverage and previously worked at The Daily Caller, a conservative outlet.

Mr. Koppel, in the interview, said Ms. Collins was a “tough and able” journalist who could handle Mr. Trump in a live setting. He said CNN had many reasons to go forward with the event.

“Has Trump pushed the boundaries of honesty, good taste, decency, humanity, to such a degree that we should not put him on the air at all, unless we’ve had the chance to sanitize what he has to say?” Mr. Koppel said. “I can understand that’s a reasonable question to ask. But it puts a very heavy burden on the shoulders of the people who run our networks. Because it means we are going to let them decide who gets on the air, and who doesn’t.”

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