Ex-Trump aide says former president hurt by CNN's town hall: America 'saw he’s a ranting lunatic'

Ex-Trump aide says former president hurt by CNN's town hall: America 'saw he’s a ranting lunatic' (Raw Storylink): "The View" bucked the trend Thursday with a discussion about CNN's town hall with Donald Trump, with one of the hosts saying the widely criticized decision to give the former president a platform was actually good news for America.

CNN's airing of the show has caused "outrage and fear" in the U.S. and among the country's international allies, CNN's Jim Scuitto reported Thursday.

For a little over an hour, Trump was allowed to lie without enough fact-checking, lamented the View's Sunny Hostin. She complained that moderator Kaitlan Collins took too long before she began to correct his claims.

But Alyssa Farah Griffin, who previously worked for Trump in the White House, argued that it is important to give him a platform because it would allow him to remind the world of who he is, and said that's exactly what happened.

"Seventy-four million people voted for him," said Griffin, "He's the GOP frontrunner, outperforming other people by double digits. By the way, people got to see who he is: a ranting lunatic siding with Vladimir Putin. He didn't win a single voter. That was radioactive for independents and moderates."

CNN Trump Town Hall Flops With Ratings Lower Than 2016 (PoliticusUSAlink): The ratings are in for CNN’s Trump town hall, and the special only drew the audience for an average Tucker Carlson show.

CNN was expecting a ratings bonanza after the E. Jean Carroll verdict, but instead, Trump drew fewer viewers than the last CNN town hall that he did in March 2016 (3.2 million), and it was nearly eight times fewer viewers than the 2015 Republican primary debate that CNN hosted (23 million).

Trump isn’t a huge ratings draw. CNN could have gone out and hired Tucker Carlson and pulled the same or better numbers than they got with Trump.