Daily Mail: Megyn Kelly slams CNN's Kaitlan Collins' moderation of Trump town hall

Story from Daily Mail:

Megyn Kelly has slammed Kaitlan Collins' 'train wreck' town hall with Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying the anchor was 'ill-equipped' to deal with the former president.

On Thursday's episode of The Megyn Kelly show, she accused the conversation of spinning 'out of control.'

'It failed on every front except one,' she said on the SiriusXM podcast, 'it was wildly successful in giving Donald Trump an hour of free airtime to make his case without laying a glove on him. Congrats, CNN.'

Collins has faced widespread criticism for the town hall, where Trump repeated claims about the 2020 presidential election, and mocked E. Jean Carroll, who won $5 million in damages just the day before, when a jury found Trump sexually abused her in 1996.

Even CNN star anchor Anderson Cooper blasted his own network for the interview - and said viewers have the right to 'never watch this network again'.

In the wake of the explosive interview on Wednesday night, the likes of Joy Behar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lead the backlash at CNN, with AOC fuming the network 'should be ashamed of themselves'.

'I think it was a profoundly irresponsible decision,' she told MSNBC, of CNN's hosting of the event.

Ocasio-Cortez said on the TV channel that CNN 'put a sexual abuse victim at risk.'

Joy Behar, host of The View, tweeted: 'The Cnn thing is a joke. The audience is stacked with his cult. Kaitlin [sic] is good, but it's impossible to deal with this pathological liar.'

The View's Sunny Hostin also joined in the criticism on Thursday, saying Collins was 'not prepared' and 'needed a producer in her ear' when interviewing Trump.

Despite the backlash, it was revealed that CNN's ratings soared to 3.3 million during the television event - double Fox and MSNBC's.

In 70 minutes of tense sparring with Collins, Trump called January 6 a 'beautiful day' and wouldn't say whether he wanted Ukraine or Russia to win the war.

He also branded Collins a 'nasty person' for pressing him on why he took so long to recover classified documents from Mar-a-Lago in his first appearance on the network since 2016.

'It was train wreck TV,' Kelly said. 'It was like they forgot everything we know about Donald Trump.

'Like how hard he is to control, how he likes to filibuster, how difficult it is to fact-check him in real time, and how important time limits on answers are when dealing with him.'

Kelly berated Collins for asking about 'January 6, election denialism Mar-a-Lago documents and the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse case'.

She said the host brought up these topics, instead of members of the audience, and then 'refused to move on' from them once Trump had answered and, in some cases, repeatedly.'

She asked: 'Where were the questions about inflation, or the banking crisis and what to do about it?'

Kelly added that she thought the purpose of the town hall was for voters to work out who they wanted to vote for in the primaries, and that this interview did not serve that purpose.

'One third of the debate was on whether he lost the last time around, the insurrection and pardons for its participants may be catnip for the left but it's not what's driving GOP voters,' she said.

Kelly, however, famously asked the president about his character during the RNC debate in 2016.

'You've called women you don't like 'fat pigs,' 'dogs,' 'slobs' and 'disgusting animals,'' Kelly said while moderating the debate for Fox News.

'Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?'

Trump replied: 'Honestly, Megyn, if you don't like it, I'm sorry . . . I've been very nice to you, although I could probably not be, based on the way you have treated me.'

Her questions so irritated Trump that he took to Twitter at 3am the next morning to personally attack the host, siccing his followers on the then Fox News star and leading to her leaving the network.

Seven years later, Kelly on Thursday claimed that Collins 'did a decent job of trying to correct certain things' but erred when she 'injected her opinion, disguised as fact checks, in there.'

CNN star Anderson Cooper weighed in on the debate on Thursday. During the opening monologue to his CNN show Anderson Cooper 360, Cooper told viewers that not listening to Trump won't make him 'go away'.

'You have every right to be outraged and 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?' he said.

'Many of you are upset that someone who attempted to destroy our democracy was invited to sit on a 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,' Cooper began.

'Many of you think CNN shouldn't have given him any platform to speak and I understand the anger about that - giving him the audience, the time, I get that,' he added.

'But this is what I also get; the man you were so disturbed to see and hear from last night - that man is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president,' he said.

Cooper also mentioned the largely pro-Trump audience, which applauded many of Trump's comments, including the way he mocked E. Jean Carroll just 24 hours after a jury found he sexually abused her.

'It was certainly disturbing to hear that audience, young and old, our fellow citizens, people who love their kids and go to church laugh and applaud his lies and his continued defamation of a woman who according to a jury of his peers he sexually abused and defamed,' Cooper said.

'That audience that upset you? That's a sampling of about half the country. They are your family members, your neighbors and they are voting and many said they're voting for him.'

Following the town hall, Carroll threatened to sue Donald Trump for a third time over his 'vile' comments.

She told the New York Times on Thursday that she was considering filing another defamation suit after Trump told Collins the story was 'fake' and 'made up'.