CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins kicked off her network’s town hall event with former President Donald Trump on Wednesday by repeating partisan narratives about the 2020 election.
As soon as Trump was seated, Collins told the voters in the room that his first term “ended with a deadly riot at the Capitol” and that he had not “publicly acknowledged the 2020 election result.”
“Why should Americans put you back in the White House?” she asked.
Trump reminded Collins that in November 2020 he received more votes than any incumbent presidential candidate in history.
The former president also noted that it has since been proved that the intelligence community and social media platforms worked to throttle the Hunter Biden laptop story shortly before the election.
“When you look at what happened during that election, unless you’re a very stupid person, you see what happened,” Trump said.
“Most people understand what happened. That was a rigged election.”
COLLINS: “You still have not publicly acknowledged the 2020 election results…”
TRUMP: “When you look at what happened during that election — unless you’re a very stupid person — you see what happened…” pic.twitter.com/LE76dKoDXT
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 11, 2023
Collins pushed back, saying, “It was not a rigged election. It was not a stolen election. You and your supporters lost more than 60 court cases.”
“It’s been nearly two and a half years,” Collins continued. “Can you publicly acknowledge that you did lose the 2020 election?”
Trump was undeterred, pointing to video evidence of ballot harvesting uncovered by the election integrity group True the Vote.
After Collins tried to corner Trump with questions about the 2020 election, the town hall’s first audience questioner asked Trump if he would “suspend polarizing talk of election fraud” during his 2024 White House run.
“Yeah, unless I see election fraud,” Trump responded. “If I see election fraud I think I have an obligation to say it.”
“We should have voter ID, we should have one-day elections, we should have paper ballots,” Trump said.
First question for President Trump is from a man named Scott Dustin who wants to know if Trump will commit to not making “polarizing” statements about the 2024 election. pic.twitter.com/TZ6ClnJ7g8
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) May 11, 2023
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.