CNN’s planned town hall with Mike Pence angers viewers: ‘Looking forward to watching MSNBC’
CNN viewers still smarting from the cable network’s chaotic town hall with Donald Trump earlier this month vowed to flip the channel when it airs a similar event with former Vice President Mike Pence on June 7.
Dana Bash, CNN’s political anchor and correspondent, announced Thursday that she will moderate the town hall from Iowa.
“Looking forward to hosting Former Vice President @Mike_Pence in a @CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall from Iowa,” Bash tweeted.
The tweet was met with a deluge of furious responses.
“‘Looking forward to hosting Former Vice President @Mike_Pence’ — Said no one ever? LOL,” tweeted one Twitter user.
Another Twitter user commented: “And I’ll look forward to watching MSNBC.”
“I would rather watch paint dry,” tweeted Irene Adams.
Another angry Twitter user vowed: “I’m done with your town halls.”
Pence has yet to official declare his candidacy for the presidency in 2024.
The former vice president has said he expects to make a decision “before the month of June is out.”
The town hall with Pence will feature a live audience of GOP voters and registered Republicans in Iowa.
The network defended the decision to bring on Trump’s former No. 2.
“CNN’s Town Hall slate reflects the dynamics of the 2024 race, which features numerous contenders vying for the Republican nomination to challenge President Biden’s bid for reelection,” a spokesperson told The Post on Thursday
Three days before the Pence event, CNN will air a town hall with Nikki Haley, whose candidacy for president had led anchor Don Lemon to put his foot in his mouth about whether the former ambassador to the UN was “in her prime.”
Lemon has since been fired, along with several of the network’s other left-leaning voices as new boss Chris Licht pushes more centrist coverage.
However, the Trump town hall moderated by Kaitlan Collins ignited widespread criticism.
Licht and CNN were accused of leaving Collins out to dry in front of a hostile pro-Trump crowd which applauded and cheered as the former president denigrated a rape accuser and repeated claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
The fallout included harsh criticism from CNN staffers such as veteran international news anchor Christiane Amanpour, who told graduating journalism students in New York last week that she aired her frustrations directly with Licht.
Both Licht and Collins pushed back on the criticism.
Collins, who recently signed a new contract after being tapped to host a nightly 9 p.m. primetime show, told viewers that it was “important to remember that [Trump] is right now the GOP front-runner” and that the town hall was a “major inflection point” in the race for the GOP nomination.
Licht praised Collins’ “masterful performance,” saying she asked tough questions in difficult circumstances.
“If someone was going to ask tough questions and have that messy conversation, that damn well should be on CNN,” said Licht, who has vowed to restore the network to its roots of centrist coverage.
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