Former president and current leading Republican party candidate in the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump sat down Wednesday night, for a televised CNN town hall event held at Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, with several hundred voters in attendance. This comes amid a barrage of criticisms from left-wing politicians and talking heads who slammed the far-left cable network for "platforming" the popular 45th president.
Left-wing CNN host Kaitlan Collins rudely berated and interrupted Trump throughout the town hall which covered issues ranging from the contested 2020 presidential election results, to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
"Most people understand and what happened, that was a rigged election, it was a shame our country had to go through it," the former president said. And he charged that the 2020 contest "was a horrible election" and emphasized that "we have to have honest elections in our country."
Trump was also asked if he'll accept the 2024 results if he's the GOP nominee, Trump twice said, "if I think it's an honest election, I would be honored to."
The former president was asked if he will pardon some of the Jan. 6 defendants convicted in the ongoing persecution of protesters involved in the Capitol riot in January, 2021. More than 300 protesters have been charged to date by President Joe Biden's department of justice.
"I am inclined to pardon many of them… I would say it would be a large portion of them," Trump said.
On the ongoing war in Ukraine, the 45th president declared: "if I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day."
Asked if he wanted Ukraine or Russia to win the war, Trump said, "I don’t think in terms of winning or losing. I think in terms of getting it settled, so we stop killing all these people... I want everybody to stop dying."
On the issue of gun violence, Trump vowed to protect the Second Amendment and concentrate on tackling the mental health crisis if elected.
Apparently frustrated by Collins' combative and partisan conduct, the former president at one point towards the end of the town hall, called her a "nasty person."
The town hall attendees were apparently entertained by Trump's hilarious antics and one-liners; they laughed several times during the event which lasted over 70 minutes.
'Trump CNN Townhall' also trended on social media as many commended the former president's performance against an obviously biased and partisan host in Collins.
However many left-wing talking heads and politicians were enraged by The town hall.
"CNN should be ashamed of themselves," socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(D-New York) fumed on Twitter. "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. 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."
UltraViolet, a women’s advocacy organization, also slammed CNN, demanding that it fire CEO Chris Licht as a way to show "accountability" for the broadcast.
Many on social media pointed out that the left's demand that Trump not be 'platformed,' is dangerously fascistic and goes against the spirit of American constitution's First Amendment -- the constitutional right to free speech and freedom of association.
WATCH Trump's CNN town hall