Donald Trump on Sunday said CNN’s Kaitlan Collins was “not exactly Barbara Walters” during last week’s town hall.
The former president’s biting reference to the pioneering TV journalist Walters, who died at the end of 2022, continued his Jekyll-and-Hyde regard for Collins, who moderated his first on-air appearance on CNN in years.
He called her a “nasty person” as she pressed for an answer to a question, but later told her she did a “good job.”
In between, he interrupted Collins, regurgitated lies about the 2020 election, dodged questions, steamrolled fact-checks and remained antagonistic.
On Truth Social Sunday, he noted the criticism CNN and its CEO Chris Licht received for its handling of the event.
“It’s really amazing to watch the head of CNN get absolutely lambasted for asking me to do a so-called Town Hall,” he wrote. “In all fairness, nobody had any problems with what he wanted to do until after the show started, when they quickly realized that Ms. Collins was not exactly Barbara Walters, or even close. That’s when the trouble from the Radical Left started.”
Trump then went after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) who joined the chorus of disapproval over CNN giving Trump such a platform.
“Neurotic little AOC with the bad looking boyfriend, went crazy,” he said. “‘He owns CNN, he’s in their head,’ they screamed. CNN, take the GREAT RATINGS!”
Collins defended herself and the network last week.
“The 70 minutes I spent on stage in New Hampshire with former president Donald Trump was a major inflection point in the Republican party’s search for its nominee and potentially the starting line for America’s next presidential race,” she said. “It’s important to remember that he is, right now, the GOP frontrunner, a race that he is running, as noted, while being criminally indicted, found civilly liable and under investigation for everything from his handling of classified documents to his business empire.”
