Last night, scandal-ridden former president Donald Trump — who is already openly refusing to participate in a Republican presidential debate — participated in a town hall at New Hampshire’s St. Anselm College with CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, which he effectively treated like less of a political forum and more of an open mic night featuring the one and only Donnie J. Trump.
The whole event was every bit the hot mess we expected it to be and more, with Collins posing multiple questions to the former president, only for him to grandstand, scream, carry on, beat around the bush, and yet repeatedly never even answered the question posed to him with a simple yes or no and eventually devolved into Trump hitting the CNN host with one of his favorite insults when he called her a “nasty person.”
Despite the ex-president’s horrendous behavior and manners last night, Collins remained strong and steadfast, ensuring that she touched on all of the most prominent topics concerning the scandal-ridden, newly-indicted ex-president — ranging from the recent sexual assault civil verdict against him in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit, to the ongoing election crime investigation in Georgia, to the ongoing Justice Department investigations still raging against him concerning the Mar-a-Lago stolen document scandal, to the January 6th Capitol attack, to Trump’s overall efforts to overthrow a United States presidential election.
Even with Trump’s best efforts to deflect and project, Collins ensured there was no stone left unturned during last night’s forum. According to legal experts, the CNN anchor seemingly set the former president up to essentially tell on himself, as experts believe that Donald Trump all but handed investigators and prosecutors a trove of fresh, brand new evidence against himself in not one, not two, but all three of the currently ongoing criminal investigations against him.
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
Salon’s Igor Derysh reported, “Trump repeatedly lied during the town hall that the election was ‘rigged,’ that Georgia ‘owed’ him votes, that he had the right to take classified documents to Mar-a-Lago and that he does not know E. Jean Carroll — the writer who was awarded $5 million a day earlier after it found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation,” before going on to cite a tweet from national security attorney Bradley Moss last night that read, “All three ongoing criminal cases got new evidence tonight against Trump. He is confessing on live television.”
All three ongoing criminal cases got new evidence tonight against Trump. He is confessing on live television.
— Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) May 11, 2023
“Former FBI agent Pete Strzok called the comment [that he didn’t ‘really’ share the classified documents with anyone] a ‘tacit admission of unauthorized disclosure of classified information,'” the report reads. “During another exchange, Collins asked Trump about his call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, demanding he ‘find’ enough votes to swing the state’s election. Trump said he believed it was a ‘rigged election’ and said he told Raffensperger ‘you owe me votes because the election was rigged.’ ‘File this clip under new evidence for Fani Willis,’ tweeted Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor. ‘This sure sounds like an admission of corrupt intent to me.'”
When it came to the topic of the deadly January 6th Capitol insurrection, Trump openly agreed when Collins noted that the people who participated in storming and attacking the Capitol building with Congress and his own VP inside “listen to [him] like no one else.” Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig spoke with Mediaite in the aftermath of the town hall event and said that this Trump statement was “the most important clip of the night” because the epicenter of the J6 investigations was proving that Donald committed a crime by harnessing his influence over his base of supporters and knowingly using that to ignite the fatal attack.
“I’ve never heard him so clearly admit that. Everything Donald Trump says is out there. It’s fair game. It can be used,” Honig said.
To put the icing on the cake of Donald Trump’s truly disastrous night, experts noted that the former president opened himself up to yet another lawsuit from his rape accuser, world-renowned author and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, when he blatantly repeated and doubled down on the very same defamatory statements that earned him a brutal loss in the Manhattan trial this week — something that legal experts were already making note of when he was making similar remarks on his Truth Social platform in the midst of the trial.
Read Salon’s full analysis here.
Featured image via Political Tribune Gallery
