CNN will host a town hall for progressive Texas Senate candidate James Talarico next month, even as the network remains locked in a legal fight with the Trump White House over press access.
The event, announced in a Monday morning press release, is a partnership between CNN and Jubilee Media. It will take place live from Texas on Wednesday, October 14, with CNN host Erin Burnett moderating and taking questions alongside a live audience of Texas voters.
CNN says the audience will include “Democrats, Republicans, and Independent voters.” Jubilee is known for its YouTube debate programming, which draws viewers across the political spectrum.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican running for Sen. John Cornyn’s seat after defeating Cornyn in this year’s GOP primary, has also been invited to appear.
Burnett’s Trump Criticism
Burnett has recently sparred with the administration over its decision to bar CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House press pool over what the White House characterized as “fake news” reporting. On last Wednesday’s episode of “Erin Burnett OutFront,” she said that “for Trump, fiction and lies refers to any story that he doesn’t like.”
She went further, comparing the ban to press restrictions in communist China: “This is a ban that is more likely to be seen in Beijing than Washington. China’s Xi Jinping does have absolute control over the media. He has the power to silence dissenting voices. And that’s exactly what Trump is doing on the same day that he meets with Xi, where he is rolling out the red carpet for the Chinese president, something that hasn’t been done on U.S. soil. We haven’t been here in nearly a decade.”
Burnett’s record on press freedom has not always tracked with that framing. When Twitter banned Trump in January 2021, she did not push back on arguments that platforms should remove him over claims his remarks were dangerous. When former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was suspended from Twitter over COVID claims, Burnett asked guest Mike Shields, “You don’t think Twitter should stop her from using their platform to spread her message, even if it is misleading?” Shields replied: “Look, this is America. We have free speech. Even people saying dumb things are allowed in our country. Twitter is a platform that looks biased. It looks like it only does this sort of thing to conservatives.”
The Legal Fight
Days after CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were barred from the White House, U.S. District Judge Tim Kelly ruled in a lawsuit brought jointly by the three outlets that they must be “immediately” reinstated. The White House nonetheless dropped CNN from the press pool traveling with Trump on Air Force One this past Saturday.
Attorney General Todd Blanche defended that decision Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” saying the White House “routinely decides who can go on Air Force One.” He added: “This wasn’t a one-time denial of CNN. There’s all kinds of times when certain reporters are not flying or are flying.”
