Why exactly, Anderson Cooper, do we need to listen to Donald Trump?

Under heavy criticism, CNN’s Anderson Cooper recently delivered a solemn monologue defending his network’s decision to air its Donald Trump town hall event in New Hampshire. “But do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?” Cooper asked his audience.

Meanwhile, CNN Chairman Chris Licht claimed that the town hall had served America “very well” by helping clarify what the “stakes are in this election.” In other words, the town hall was in the public interest because it educated the public about a controversial but important figure worth listening to, even for those who disagree with him. 

Unfortunately, this is a long way from accurately describing Donald Trump. 

One problem with CNN’s attempt to defend a media debacle with media sanctimony about educating the public is that we have long since passed the point where anyone, supporters or opponents, needs an education about Donald Trump. In 2016, there was still uncertainty about how Trump would behave if elected president. At this point, aside from any just-awakened Rip Van Winkles, we already know.

Another problem with CNN’s self-congratulatory attitude is that its inept staging undercut the effectiveness of its own town hall moderator, “CNN This Morning” anchor Kaitlan Collins. The network stocked the audience with Trump supporters, which may have been part of a necessary condition for CNN to land the Trump town hall in the first place.

But when Trump denied the outcome of the 2020 election and smeared E. Jean Carroll, whom he had just been found liable for sexually battering, the audience’s jeering laughter and applause (New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu called them “completely embarrassing”) interfered with Collins’s efforts to fact-block him. When a network like CNN stages a quasi-campaign event for Trump’s Johnstown Flood of lies, such as his proclamation that the Jan. 6 rioters had “love in their hearts,” how does the public benefit?

Above all, CNN’s defense fails to address the unique dilemma in covering Trump. Although free speech is the “lifeblood of democracy,” Trump, by repeatedly and falsely attacking the outcome of the 2020 election and American democracy in general (“this was a rigged election…we have elections that were horrible ”) uses his free speech privilege to undermine support for democracy. And that support may be in play because, according to one poll, 42 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of Democrats say they prefer a strong unelected leader to a weak elected one. This may just be Trump’s ideal political environment. 

Trump isn’t just telling run-of-the-mill lies. His stolen election claim has been characterized by Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder as the lie “so big that it reorders the world. And so part of the telling the lie is that you immediately say that it’s the other side that is telling the lie.” 

Where is the public benefit to giving a friendly forum to the big lie that erodes American democracy?

No one is arguing that the media should stop covering Trump, but we do need a robust debate over how to cover him better. Trump can be covered as a news event by networks with reporters or anchors who call out his lies without a sneering audience and with on-screen chyrons and tweets that provide accurate facts to viewers in real time. If Trump is the Republican nominee, there is certainly a role for presidential debates where the moderator, and presumably President Biden as the Democratic nominee, call out Trump’s lies under a “hold the applause” rule.

Even then, Trump won’t be easily restrained, but it would be an improvement over what we witnessed last week. CNN and the other networks need to do some serious self-examination about where they will draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable journalism when it comes to Trump.

Gregory J. Wallance, a writer in New York City, was a federal prosecutor under Carter and Reagan. He was part of the ABSCAM prosecution team, which convicted a U.S. senator and six representatives of bribery. His newest book – “Into Siberia: George Kennan’s Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia” – is due out later this year. Follow him on Twitter at @gregorywallance.