Mere minutes after today’s Morning Jolt was posted, the good folks at CNN’s public relations reached out and offered this statement, attributable to a CNN spokesperson:

Kaitlan Collins exemplified what it means to be a world-class journalist. She asked tough, fair and revealing questions. And she followed up and fact-checked President Trump in real time to arm voters with crucial information about his positions as he enters the 2024 election as the Republican frontrunner. That is CNN’s role and responsibility: to get answers and hold the powerful to account.

This is a network defending their correspondent, which is what good bosses do. And again, there probably wasn’t a heck of a lot that Collins could have done differently; had she interrupted Trump even more frequently, the whole night would have turned into a repeat of Trump’s first debate with Biden – endless crosstalk that was difficult to understand and an even more combative tone and likely more insults from Trump like, “you’re a nasty person, I’ll tell ya.”

In the end, the problem for CNN wasn’t really the choice of Collins as moderator. The problem was the town hall audience full of Trump fans, a result of the invitation to the New Hampshire GOP and other state groups to help fill the auditorium. Once that die was cast, it was guaranteed that almost all of Trump’s statements and arguments would be greeted with applause and approval, and that Collins, or any other moderator from CNN, would be cast as the villain for challenging, disputing, or countering them. Had Wolf Blitzer, Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, or any other one of the network’s big names been on that stage, the night wouldn’t have proceeded much differently.