Donald Trump will make his first appearance on CNN in many years next week, when he appears in a town hall event sponsored by the network.The network announced that Trump would take questions from Republicans and undeclared voters at the May 10 event, with CNN This Morning anchor Kaitlan Collins moderating. It will take place at St. Anselm College.Trump targeted the network throughout his presidency and afterward, repeatedly calling it “fake news” to the point it became a chant among his supporters.CNN said that it “has a longstanding tradition of hosting leading presidential candidates for town halls and political events as a critical component of the network’s robust campaign coverage.”During his administration, Trump largely shunned the network save for press conference interactions with its then-White House correspondent, Jim Acosta. But under Chris Licht, who succeeded Jeff Zucker as the head of the network last year, CNN has de-emphasized opinion and analysis, as its daytime hours have been overhauled to emphasize breaking news. The network also has filled its 9 p.m. ET hour in part with special event programming, like town halls, as well as sit down interviews with celebrities and political figures. This town hall event will start at 8 p.m. ET.Collins also covered the Trump administration and had some flare ups, including an incident in 2018 when she was banned from a press event, apparently over the questions she posed to the president earlier in the day. Collins became co-host of CNN’s morning show last November, and has since also anchored in the evening hours.She will face extensive scrutiny over how she fact-checks Trump in real time, particularly if he repeats his unfounded claims about the 2020 presidential election.The conversations for a Trump appearance have been ongoing for the past several weeks, according to a source.Not all networks have taken the same approach to coverage. When Trump gave a speech following his New York indictment last month, CNN carried most of it, Fox News covered all of it, and MSNBC skipped it.Fox News will host the first GOP presidential primary debate in August. Trump, though, raised the prospect of not participating. He has recently appeared on Sean Hannity’s show and sat for an interview with Tucker Carlson, who was dropped from the network last week. But the former president has been critical of other personalities. He wrote on Truth Social, “When you’re leading by seemingly insurmountable numbers, and you have hostile Networks with angry, TRUMP & MAGA hating anchors asking the ‘questions,’ why subject yourself to being libeled and abused?”
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