Ex-DOJ Official Name-Drops Taylor Swift To Bash CNN's Trump Town Hall

Ben Blanchet
Updated ·2 min read
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A former Justice Department official tore apart CNN with the help of a Taylor Swift reference after the network announced it will host a “town hall”-style meeting with former President Donald Trump next week. (See his remarks below.)

Neal Katyal, a former acting solicitor general in the Obama administration, joined a choir of critics who have ripped the network for giving Trump a platform as he gears up for the Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire.

“At least for now ... the media seems complicit in giving him a platform,” Katyal, a law professor at Georgetown University, told MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace. “And, look, I believe very much in debate and the clash of ideas and I want to hear a speech from the other side of those of whom we disagree ... but the idea that CNN would basically give him a town hall, I think, is a dangerous one.”

“To quote Taylor Swift on TikTok,” he added, “this is not your father’s Republican Party.”

Katyal was making a nod to a recently resurfaced clip from Swift’s documentary “Miss Americana” where she debated her father Scott Swift about speaking out against then-2018 GOP Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn.

“Does Bob Hope do it? Did Bing Crosby do it? Does Mick Jagger do it?” asked Scott Swift, who weighed in on whether Swift should make a political statement.

“First of all, these aren’t your dad’s celebrities and these aren’t your dad’s Republicans,” the singer replied before she eventually decided to break her political silence ahead of the 2018 midterms.

Katyal on Wednesday cited Trump’s indictment and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection in criticizing the network’s move.

“It’s a bit surreal for me to think that CNN, in a span of one month, is going to flip its coverage from covering the criminal arraignment of Donald Trump to giving this guy a town hall,” he said.

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