Op-ed by Summer Lane | Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump reminded the nation why he won the presidency in 2016 when he took the stage at CNN’s town hall event on Wednesday night. The crowd greeted him with an immediate standing ovation before he took a seat beside CNN moderator and host Kaitlan Collins.
Remarkably, Trump spent most of the night fielding accusations from Collins, who focused on issues like Jan. 6, the 2020 presidential election, and his deposition tape for the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit that the president is planning to appeal.
In true Trump fashion, when asked about why it allegedly took him “three hours” to address the protestors who had entered the U.S. Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, the president pulled printed receipts from his pocket that proved that he did, indeed, call for peace on that day.
The audience cheered and laughed at his response, consistently showing their support for the president as Collins relentlessly attempted to put Trump on the defensive. At one point, Trump remarked to Collins, “You are a nasty person, I tell ya.”
Trump shone brightest when he was able to have conversations on border security, the economy, and foreign policy. When asked about the Ukraine-Russia war, he diplomatically stated, “If I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day – 24 hours.”
“Do you want Ukraine to win this war?” Collins pressed.
“I don’t think in terms of winning and losing,” Trump replied evenly. “I think in terms of getting settled so we stop killing all these people.”
The president also addressed the skyrocketing price of goods and energy, drawing massive positive feedback from the crowd when he revealed what he would do first to get the economy under control: “DRILL BABY DRILL,” he said.
On the subject of border security, Trump added that Thursday would be “a day of infamy” as Title 42 was set to expire, removing perhaps the final vestige of border policy that enabled immigration authorities to expel illegal migrants who are seeking asylum in the U.S.
Despite Collins’ best efforts, she was objectively dominated by Trump’s responses, and the audience reacted with overwhelming support. In fact, Trump performed so well on Wednesday that CNN appeared to cut the program short. Initially, the town hall was scheduled to be 90 minutes long, but Collins suddenly ended the program 20 minutes short of that marker, The Gateway Pundit revealed.
“Hope everyone enjoyed CNN tonight,” Trump wrote on Truth Social following the event. “The New Hampshire audience was AMAZING. Thank you!”