In an interview with The Messenger on its launch day, former President Donald Trump expressed his surprise at the negative reaction to the ratings his town hall garnered on CNN. Trump believed that CNN should have celebrated the event’s success instead of being “traumatized” by it.
During the interview, Trump also mentioned his astonishment at the hostility he encountered during the town hall, as he assumed the network was attempting to regain viewership.
“I had expected them to maintain a neutral stance, or even improve upon it, in order to regain viewership. Considering they had one of their highest viewership days in years, one would assume they would celebrate their success,” said Trump.
“It was surprising to witness their state of trauma following the event. Instead of reacting as they did, they should have acknowledged the tremendous ratings they received that night, one of the best in many years, and celebrated their accomplishment. It would have been appropriate to “spike the football,” so to speak.”
According to Brian Stelter, the gathering attracted an audience of 703,000 individuals between the ages of 25 and 54, surpassing CNN’s average viewership for the 8:00 p.m. time slot by a factor of five. The following day, Trump expressed that numerous people had their opinions altered after listening to Common Sense, which he described as exceptionally brilliant.
Nevertheless, the town hall faced backlash from certain high-ranking staff members, such as Anderson Cooper, who informed viewers the following day that they had the full entitlement to feel outraged and angry and discontinue watching the channel altogether.
Senior media reporter Oliver Darcy expressed in his Reliable Sources newsletter that it was challenging to perceive how the airing of falsehoods on CNN Wednesday evening served the interests of America.
“Well, I don’t want to say. But everyone else says it was. … I’ve never been so credited with the successes the way I have with this. Everybody — the radical left, fascists, Marxists, communists, and normal people — has said it was a complete victory for Trump. .. But CNN has taken tremendous hits. And I’m surprised they don’t really say that they had a very big ratings night. Truly surprising to me.”
