Kaitlan Collins Unbothered By Criticism After Donald Trump Town Hall | Barrett Media (2024)

Kaitlan Collins is speaking candidly for the first time since she moderated at CNN town hall event with former President Donald Trump.

During an appearance on The Axe Files podcast with CNN colleague David Axelrod, Collins said she was mostly unbothered by the reception she received for her performance during the event.

“I think that I did the best job that I could do. I spent weeks preparing for that, watched past town halls, past debates, I did my homework,” Collins said after being asked about the “unflattering” coverage surrounding her performance. “And I think when you come out of something like that…people are entitled to their own reaction to it. And we certainly saw that.”

Axelrod then asked if she had felt any of the critiques were personal in nature and whether or not they were difficult to absorb.

“My question for me at the end of the day is: Do I think that I did the best job that I can do? And how do I feel about my performance in that? And I felt like I did the best job that I could do. I went into it fully prepared. I was prepared for how he was going to respond to that and what that was going to look like. And I think that was the best that I could do. My job was to press him on those really important issues that he hasn’t been pressed on.”

The Axe Files host also asked Collins about her reaction to Trump calling her a “nasty” person, which she said she was prepared for.

“Always to women. I mean, not that he doesn’t criticize men or give them unflattering nicknames,” Collins said. “I’m very well aware of what his reactions to tough questioning often are. And I think my job is to not be deterred by that. It is really important for any reporter, but especially if you’re covering Trump, to be unflappable in that way.”

Collins was the subject of much criticism for her performance in the event. Reaction was mostly mixed along party affiliation, with conservatives lambasting the combative nature she showed with the former President, while liberals pointed to the difficult position the 31-year-old was placed in by now former CNN CEO Chris Licht.

As cable news channels continue to push to each side of the political aisle, NewsNation host Chris Stirewalt believes there’s a large portion of the audience that isn’t served by the outlets.

Stirewalt is set to begin his tenure hosting The Hill Sunday for NewsNation this weekend. The program is an extension of the weekday version of the panel program, with NewsNation entering the Sunday political affairs program realm. The former Fox News political editor believes there are still viewers who just want the news without being told how or what to think.

“The underserved portion of the American news market are folks who are not looking for an emotional attachment or partisan cues for how to consume their news,” Stirewalt told Variety. “They are looking for something that seems like it’s trying to be fair, and I think that it’s a harder way to make a buck in the news business, for sure,” he adds, but “there is a lot left on the table in terms of Americans who have mostly tuned out the news because it’s just too much.”

The new program will air Sundays at 10 AM ET, which will see it look for viewers in the same daypart as long-running shows like NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, CBS’ Face The Nation, and Fox News Sunday, among others. While there is stiff competition, Chris Stirewalt says there will be many well-recognized faces appearing on his NewsNation show.

“You’ll see folks from The Hill, from NewsNation, but you will also see people from our competitors and from around the media world” he said. “Some of them are very famous names and some of them are new to a lot of people but have an interesting voice and good perspective.”

After departing MSNBC earlier this year, Mehdi Hasan has announced the launch of a digital media company.

The Mehdi Hasan Show was canceled late last year, which ultimately led to Hasan leaving the cable news outlet he called home since 2020.

After the cancellation of his show, Hasan joined The Guardian as a regular columnist but has subsequently announced plans for a new digital media company called Zeteo.

“You thought I was gone? You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Hasan joked to begin a video announcing the debut of the company. “I’m back with a whole new media company. In fact, my own. We’re calling it Zeteo, the ancient Greek word that goes back to Socrates and Plato, which means to seek out to inquire to get to the truth. And that is the guiding principle behind my new media venture.”

He continued by claiming he has assembled an “Avengers-style team of contributors” that “will blow your mind.”

Mehdi Hasan will anchor a weekly streaming video show called Mehdi Unfiltered. He also teased podcasts, op-eds, and newsletters from the upstart company.

Subscriptions to the company will eventually cost $6 per month, he told The Washington Post.

Hasan isn’t the first former cable news host to launch their own digital media startup. Both Tucker Carlson and Bill O’Reilly have created similar ventures since they each departed Fox News. However, Hasan noted, “No one really on the progressive left has been able to pull off anything similar.”

After being removed from CNN This Morning after the network shuffled its daytime lineup, former anchor Phil Mattingly has a new role at the cable network.

CNN has announced Mattingly will serve as its Chief Domestic Correspondent. As his first assignment for the network, Mattingly will cover the Presidential campaign of former President Donald Trump.

The role won’t be a foreign one to Mattingly, who served as the network’s Chief White House Correspondent before shifting to the anchor chair of the morning show.

“Phil Mattingly is one of the strongest politicaljournalists and anchors we have at CNN,” saidCEO and Chairman Mark Thompson. “As a 2016campaign correspondent, Capitol Hill correspondent, Senior White House Correspondent and Chief White House Correspondent, Phil has risen to every challenge CNN has thrown at him.

“He’s the perfect choice to become CNN Anchor, Chief Domestic Correspondent and to play a central role in our coverage of one of the most momentous election cycles in American history,” concluded Thompson.

Mattingly joined CNN in 2015 as a New York-based correspondent. He had previously worked at Bloomberg Television in Washington.