“I still respectfully disagree with allowing Donald Trump to appear in that particular format,” Christiane Amanpour said. | Richard Shotwell/AP Photo
By Matt Berg
05/18/2023 11:35 AM EDT
Veteran CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour said she doesn’t agree with the network’s decision to host former President Donald Trump for a town hall last week.
Amanpour flew to the network’s New York headquarters to meet with CNN CEO Chris Licht following the event, she told the crowd during her Columbia Journalism School commencement speech Wednesday night. Face to face, the journalist told her boss her honest thoughts about Trump’s appearance and wanted “to hear from him firsthand what he’d been thinking.”
“We had a very robust exchange of views,” said Amanpour, CNN’s chief international correspondent, during her speech. “My management believes they did the right thing as service to the American people. I still respectfully disagree with allowing Donald Trump to appear in that particular format.”
Several CNN employees have voiced their dissatisfaction with the town hall, during which Trump continued to push false claims about the 2020 election and defended his actions on Jan. 6.
Ahead of the Columbia speech, Licht sent a note to CNN employees praising Amanpour and encouraging employees to tune in, CNN’s Oliver Darcy wrote in his daily newsletter. The CEO was aware that Amanpour planned to address the town hall, a company spokesperson told him.
During an internal call with employees last...
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