‘What was CNN thinking?’: our panel on Donald Trump’s town hall | Moira Donegan, Moustafa Bayoumi, Bhaskar Sunkara and Lloyd Green

Lies, ridicule and applause from a pliable audience - the ex-president gave the audience what they came for, much to the discredit of CNN

On Wednesday night, Donald Trump demonstrated why he leads the 2024 Republican field. The audience was his from hello". The town hall was a prime-time infomercial. Kaitlan Collins, the moderator, was no match. For good measure, he called her a nasty person" and questioned her intelligence.

Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US contributing writer

Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, the founding editor Jacobin, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in An Era of Extreme Inequalities