Page 76 of 107 Days

Anderson Cooper would make news out of the CNN town hall. He did it with the first question.

“You’ve quoted General Milley calling Donald Trump a fascist. You yourself have not used that word to describe him. Let me ask you tonight, do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?”

“Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted.”

That became the headline. I was trying to make sure that the audience knew that John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, had said he thought the former president met the definition of the word and that Trump had often praised Hitler.

I wanted voters to know that the men closest to him, members of his own administration, thought he was a fascist.

The stronger answer would have been: Never mind what I think, listen to what his generals and top officials say. To have your own people who have worked with you say such a thing is far more damning than the opinion of your political opponent.

The hall was full of undecided voters who had come ready to ask questions.

Anderson was supposed to be the moderator and step in if he thought my answer needed follow-up or clarification.

Instead, he asked the lion’s share of the questions himself.

In the eighty minutes on air, only about a dozen voters—probably less than half the audience—got to ask me something directly.

So when Anderson signed off, I walked off the stage to make myself available to any of these undecided Pennsylvania voters who hadn’t had a chance to ask their question or maybe still had something on their mind.

Even though the broadcast was over, CNN’s cameras were still running. As the broadcast went to a roundtable with commentators such as Dana Bash, David Axelrod, and Jake Tapper, they showed a split screen of me talking animatedly with one voter after another.

Kirsten, my media adviser, was bothered. She wasn’t sure if I knew that the camera was still rolling. There’s a long history of hot mics and B-roll footage making trouble for politicians.

“Go get her,” she told Opal, my body person.

Meanwhile, the panel was nitpicking my performance.

About twenty minutes into the discussion, Tapper interrupted Kaitlan Collins midsentence.

“Let’s listen in, because she’s talking to—”

They cut to me just as I was asking a member of my staff to follow up with a voter with information on student loan debt relief.

Then I turned to an audience member, Joe Donahue, who had been introduced by Anderson as a registered Republican who disagreed with me on abortion but had doubts about Trump over January 6.

His question to me on air hadn’t been about either of those things, so I wanted to take a moment with him to talk about my position on reproductive rights.

I assured him I would not try to change his view. “My point is the government shouldn’t be telling people what to do. It is not about ever disputing or criticizing anyone’s faith, ever, never.” And I told him I appreciated him asking his earlier question.

Then Opal reached me with word that we needed to go, so I thanked the audience as Jake turned back to his fellow panelists.

He pointed out that this was to have been the night of a debate between me and Trump.

“She accepted. He did not. So, we said, okay, let’s have two town halls.

She accepted. He did not. The reason that we are not critiquing Donald Trump’s performance at a town hall this evening is because Donald Trump did not agree to participate in a town hall here in Delaware County, and she did.

“So, yes, it’s inherently unfair. That said, we’re journalists, we’re going to keep talking about what we saw tonight.”

Van Jones said, “There were flashes of the Kamala I know. Who is really a true public servant, who really does work for people.

“Your job isn’t to do town halls. Your job is to fight for people.”