Kaitlan Collins Promoted to Prime Time After Hosting CNN’s Trump Town Hall

Kaitlan Collins poses at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington on April 29, 2023. Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo

The CNN journalist who hosted a town hall with former President Donald Trump has scored a prime-time slot, CNN executives said on May 17.

Kaitlan Collins will host a show at 9 p.m. Eastern, in the middle of prime time, CNN executives said at Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront, an event with advertisers.

“In her new program, officially launching later this summer, Kaitlan will bring fresh reporting that adds new perspective to the biggest stories of the day,” CNN said in a statement.

The slot has been without a permanent host since CNN fired Chris Cuomo in late 2021.

Collins was praised by Chris Licht, CNN’s new chairman, in a memorandum to CNN staffers as he shared details on the move.

“She is a smart and gifted journalist who we’ve all seen hold lawmakers and newsmakers accountable,” Licht said. “She pushes politicians off their talking points, gets real answers—and as everyone who’s worked with her knows—breaks a lot of news.”

“I’m grateful and excited for this opportunity,” Collins said on social media.

Collins had been co-hosting CNN This Morning, which recently lost co-anchor Don Lemon due to his termination. Poppy Harlow, the remaining host, said she would miss Collins but was proud of her.

Collins worked as a reporter for The Daily Caller, a conservative news outlet founded by Tucker Carlson, before being hired by CNN under its previous leadership. She was a White House correspondent during the Trump administration.

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a CNN Town Hall with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., on May 10, 2023, in a still from video. CNN/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

Licht, who became CNN’s leader in 2022, is trying to increase ratings that are lagging behind competitors like Fox News.

On May 12, Anderson Cooper, the host of the 8 p.m. time slot, was on duty for a second hour at 9 p.m. He reached an audience of just 293,000, causing CNN to slip behind the conservative Newsmax network and host Chris Plante’s “Right Squad” in viewership, according to Nielsen.

On May 15, CNN averaged just 454,000 viewers in the time slot, compared to Rachel Maddow’s 2.41 million viewers on MSNBC and Sean Hannity’s 1.97 million on Fox News, Nielsen reported.

The network also clocked its lowest ratings week in nine years in January.

Hosted Town Hall

Trump regularly appeared on CNN and other cable news broadcasters during the 2016 presidential race but had not been to CNN since being elected president.

Trump participated in a CNN town hall in New Hampshire on May 10 in an event that featured just him and Collins on stage.

Collins repeatedly challenged Trump’s claims, drawing praise from some but criticism from others.

Kevin Tober, a news analyst at NewsBusters, told The Epoch Times that Collins was “snarky and childish,” describing her as “constantly interrupting the former president and talking back.”

Licht told staffers during the network’s morning editorial call the next day that “covering Donald Trump is messy and tricky” and that “we’re going to do it fairly, toughly and aggressively, as Kaitlan did,” according to audio obtained by The Hollywood Reporter.

He called Collins’ performance “masterful,” adding, “she asked tough questions, followed up, fact-checked, fact-checked again in real-time—and as you can see, that was not an easy feat.”

Bill Grueskin, a professor at Columbia Journalism School, opined on Twitter: “The issue isn’t so much whether Kaitl[a]n Collins is doing a good or bad job. The issue is that there’s no job here for a journalist to do.”

Collins made some false statements during the town hall, including claiming that there was “no evidence” of fraud in the 2020 election and that there “weren’t any fraudulent votes in Wisconsin.” Multiple people have been charged and convicted of illegal voting in the election while more than 137,000 absentee ballots were illegally cast in Wisconsin in the election, according to a watchdog report.

CNN drew more than 3 million viewers for the special, well above its normal ratings. Licht this week emphasized CNN’s newsgathering and said it was more important now than ever.

“We prioritize reporting over punditry and separate the news from the noise,” he said.

Chris Licht, chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, speaks onstage during Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront 2023 at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City on May 17, 2023. Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images

Another New Show

CNN has recently announced another show.

In April, the network said it would be rolling out a program featuring NBA legend Charles Barkley and television personality Gayle King.

That show will also be in prime time, though it will only air once a week, CNN said.

Appearing on TNT to discuss the new show, King, who co-hosts CBS Mornings, said she hadn’t been looking for an additional job but relished the chance to work with Barkley.

“What I think is so great for the both of us is that it’s live TV,” she said. “To me, live TV is like working without a net. So whatever happens, happens. I like that.”

At the Warner Bros. Discovery event, CNN played clips of Barkley and King, including one showing Barkley saying: “She’s going to be a straight shooter. You know I’m going to be a straight shooter.”

Jackson Richman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.