How Do You Interview Donald Trump?
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2023
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump has always presented a problem for journalists. His years as a reality-television star taught him to outmaneuver facts and control narratives. Now as Trump’s second Presidential run gets under way, these skills are proving useful yet again. At CNN’s recent town hall, Trump answered questions in front of a live and sympathetic audience—a situation that played directly to his strengths as a performer. For Jelani Cobb and Steve Coll, New Yorker writers and Columbia Journalism School faculty members, the town hall raised some questions: Where is the line between coverage and promotion? And what is the role of news organizations in the age of political polarization? Cobb and Coll join Tyler Foggatt to discuss the dilemmas that journalists face when reporting on the former President and his 2024 campaign.
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| 0:47.3 | And 2024 is the final battle. |
| 0:49.7 | That's going to be the big one. |
| 0:51.9 | If you put me back in the White House, their reign will be over, and America |
| 0:57.1 | will be a free nation once again. Donald Trump is leading the field of Republican presidential |
| 1:06.1 | candidates. It doesn't seem to matter what happened on January 6th, or that he was recently found liable for sexual assault. |
| 1:13.7 | He's still popular in the polls, and that leaves reporters to figure out how to cover his campaign. |
| 1:20.0 | Is neutral objectivity possible when dealing with someone who has been accused of trying to overthrow an election? |
| 1:25.3 | And is there a way to report on what he says without unintentionally becoming a platform for misinformation? |
| 1:31.3 | When Caitlin Collins moderated a live town hall |
| 1:33.8 | with the former president for CNN, |
| 1:35.8 | it felt like 2016 all over again. |
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