CNN Trump town hall live: What time and how to watch as Kaitlan Collins prepares to grill Trump

In what is described as ‘deliberate scheduling by Pence’s team’, former Vice President Mike Pence will appear on Fox News at the same time that Donald Trump is on CNN.

In a statement to The Independent, a CNN spokesperson responded to the criticism of the network for hosting a townhall event with Mr Trump.

“President Trump is the Republican frontrunner, and our job despite his unique circumstances is to do what we do best. Ask tough questions, follow up, and hold him accountable to give voters the information they need to sort through their choices. That is our role and our responsibility,” a network spokesperson said.

The author of the Popular Information newsletter, Judd Legum, tweeted on Wednesday that “The audience for the CNN townhall w/Trump will be 400 Republicans & GOP-leaning independents”.

“Allowing Trump to appear in front of an audience exclusively comprised of people who are likely sympathetic to Trump — and then turn over the questions to that group — is irresponsible,” he added.

E Jean Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan told ABC News that Mr Trump has no grounds to launch an appeal.

“He has no appeal,” she said, adding that the judge afforded Mr Trump “multiple chances to come to that courtroom and testify”.

“Donald Trump, like all of us, is not above the law,” she said.

Ms Carroll remembered holding her lawyer’s hand as the verdict was read.

“It was this 5-foot-3, wily, female attorney and this elderly, 79-year-old advice columnist who are finally holding Donald Trump liable,” Ms Carroll told ABC News. “It was such a wonderful, overwhelming moment.”

Ms Carroll also appeared on CNN, saying that “the old view of the perfect victim was a woman who always screamed. A woman who immediately reported a woman whose life was supposed to fold up and she’s never supposed to experience happiness again”.

“That was just shut down with this verdict, the death of the perfect victim has happened. Now this verdict is for all women,” she added.

Speaking about her reaction to the jury not finding that Mr Trump raped her, she said: “Well, I just immediately [said] in my own head, ‘Oh, yes, he did. Oh yes, he did.’”

When she shook hands with Trump attorney Joe Tacopina, she told him: “He did it. And you know it.”

“I’m really sort of taking in the moment and the overwhelming flood of a lot of hate that’s part of it,” she told CNN.

She added that she was feeling an “overwhelming amount of relief and joy”.

“There’s a sort of a feeling of victory that, at last, somebody has held him accountable in a courtroom,” Ms Carroll said.

Members of the House Oversight Committee who have alleged that President Joe Biden and members of his family have committed multiple federal crimes failed to offer any evidence that any member of Mr Biden’s family had done anything of the sort, at a press conference to unveil new “evidence” against the Biden family on Wednesday.

Andrew Feinberg and Eric Garcia report from Washington, DC.

During her appearance on CBS Mornings today, E Jean Carroll was asked what question she would want voters to ask former president Donald Trump at tonight’s CNN town hall.

“I don’t think of this as being political,” she replied. “That is an impossible question for me to answer.”

Puck News rep[orts that CNN CEO Chris Licht plans to offer Kaitlan Collins, moderator of tonight’s Trump town hall, a new contract to serve as the host of the network’s 9pm primetime hour.

Collins is currently cohost of CNN This Morning.

Donald Trump will take part in a CNN town hall tonight at 8pm ET in New Hampshire as the 2024 Republican primary season gets underway.

Mr Trump is the frontrunner in a so far limited field with more candidates expected to join the race.

CNN is facing mounting criticism for hosting the event following Mr Trump being held liable by a Manhattan jury for sexually abusing writer E Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s.

In a statement to The Independent, a CNN spokesperson responded to the criticism of the network for hosting a town hall event with Mr Trump.

“President Trump is the Republican frontrunner, and our job despite his unique circumstances is to do what we do best. Ask tough questions, follow up, and hold him accountable to give voters the information they need to sort through their choices. That is our role and our responsibility,” a network spokesperson said.

The town hall will be moderated by Kaitlan Collins, the co-anchor of CNN This Morning.

According to CNN, “The town hall will stream live without requiring a cable log-in, on CNN.com’s homepage and across mobile devices”.

Mr Trump “is expected to take questions from New Hampshire Republicans and undeclared voters who plan to vote in the 2024 GOP presidential primary,” the network added.

Because five courageous women stood together, E Jean Carroll won her sexual abuse and defamation case against Donald Trump. Five women said yes, I will brave the haters, the threats, the public attacks by Trump supporters; yes, I will hold my head high and walk into that courtroom; yes, I will answer all the questions posed to me with poise and dignity; yes, I will endure cross-examination by Trump’s bare knuckles lawyers; yes, I will do it all, I will overcome the natural terror anyone would feel at doing this, the anxiety, the sleepless nights, because enough is enough, because justice matters. And that’s exactly what they did.

The political action committee founded by former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney is out with a television ad warning Americans that former president Donald Trump “is a risk America can never take again”.

The 60-second ad is set to run on CNN before and after Mr Trump appears on the network Wednesday evening for a town hall session with anchor Kaitlan Collins.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, DC.