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Washington
News outlet CNN's anchor and media personality Anderson Cooper on Thursday (May 11) defended his network's decision to hold a townhall with former US president Donald Trump. The townhall was held on Wednesday, just a day before Trump was held liable for sexually abusing journalist E Jean Carroll. However, Cooper said that he understood the anger of the viewers. He was speaking in his show 'Anderson Cooper 360'.
"Many of you have expressed deep anger and disappointment. Many of you are upset that someone who attempted to destroy our democracy was invited to sit on stage in front of a crowd of Republican voters to answer questions and predictably, continued to spew lie after lie after lie. And I get it. It was disturbing,” he said.
"The man you were so disturbed to see last night, that man is the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president," Cooper said. "You have every right to be outraged today, angry and never watch this network again, but do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?"
Trump had a question-and-answer session with Republicans and Republican-leaning voters for 70 minutes. The townhall was conducted in US' New Hampshire. The event was moderated by Kaitlan Collins. Trump assertions in the show strongly attracted allegations of being falsehoods. This was his first interview on CNN since 2016. Trump maintained his stance that he had not lost 2020 US presidential elections.
He refused to comment on January 6 Capitol Hill riots.
Critics of the CNN event argued that the townhall gave a platform to Trump and turned into something like an election rally where the former president was able to repeat his claims often found to be false.
Trump even called Kaitlan Collins, the moderator, a 'nasty person'.
Donald Trump, who still holds considerable sway in the Republican Party, has already made public his intention to contest 2024 US Presidential Election. If he gets nominated, he would face-off against sitting US President Joe Biden who has said that he would be facing polls to seek a re-election.
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