AOC and Jeffries slam CNN for platforming Donald Trump’s 'election disinformation' and abortion lies

11 May 2023

CNN's Wednesday night town hall with former President Donald Trump went off the rails, as many expected.

The 2024 MAGA hopeful used the platform during his conversation with CNN host Kaitlan Collins to continue to push 2020 election fraud lies, defend Jan. 6 rioters, and to mock his defamed sexual assault victim, E. Jane Carroll.

Ocasio-Cortez shared her thoughts on the town hall via Twitter, writing, "CNN should be ashamed of themselves. They have lost total control of this 'town hall' to again be manipulated into platforming election disinformation, defenses of Jan 6th, and a public attack on a sexual abuse victim. The audience is cheering him on and laughing at the host."

The Democratic lawmaker continued, "This falls squarely on CNN. Everyone here saw exactly what was going to happen. Instead they put a sexual abuse victim in harm's way for views. This was a choice to platform lies about the election & Jan 6th w/ no plan but to have their moderator interrupted without consequence."

Additionally, she shared a video from her interview, saying, "What we saw tonight was a series of extremely irresponsible decisions that put a sexual abuse victim at risk...in front of a national audience, and I could not have disagreed with it more. It was shameful."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries later commented during an interview with MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Trump's remarks about the U.S. debt crisis, saying, "It's time for the Republicans to force a default on the debt."

Journalist Aaron Rupar shared a clip from the House leader's interview, writing, "Hakeem Jeffries on MSNBC: 'The Republican Party under Donald Trump and Trumpism has three basic philosophical pillars. One, facts don't matter. Two, hypocrisy is not a constraint to their behavior. And three, they actually believe that shamelessness is a superpower.'"

Jeffries emphasized, "It's very clear if a default were to occur it would be very bad for the country," adding, "millions upon millions of jobs would be wiped out," and it "would crash the stock market creating a wide range of retirement insecurity."

He insisted, "It cannot happen."

Rupar adds the Democratic leader also "points out that Kaitlan Collins failed to fact-check Trump's lies about abortion."

O'Donnell noted, "none of Donald Trump's lies about abortion were challenged on CNN tonight," including, Trump saying the Democrats support abortion at nine months of pregnancy, and the Democrats support abortion — which is to say killing infants after they are naturally born. He said they are in favor of infanticide. He called it abortion after the birth of the child. But he got away with all of that on CNN without any resistance whatsoever."

The New York congressman replied, "Donald Trump has never met a lie that he doesn't like or that he's unafraid to tell. And I think the challenge here is that the Democratic position on reproductive freedom is very clear: We support Roe v. Wade; we support a woman's freedom to make her own reproductive healthcare decisions, and it's unfortunate that it was allowed to articulate those lies repeatedly without it being questioned, including by anyone in the audience, which was very disturbing."

The Daily Beast senior reporter Justin Baragona tweeted, "Another CNN staffer reacts following the end of the Trump town hall: "One of the worst hours I've ever seen on our air.'"

Watch the Ocasio-Cortez's and Jeffries' interviews below or at this link.

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