‘What was the deal last night?’: Stephen King asks the same questions we all are about Donald Trump’s CNN Town Hall

On Wednesday, ex-president Donald Trump found yet another platform — the live CNN Town Hall — to exhibit his redundant and extremely bigoted and false claims about everything from calling the 2020 elections “rigged” to mocking E. Jean Carroll. But while he did exactly what he was expected to — after all, he has to live up to his name as a real-life MCU villain — it is the reaction of the live audience that had thrown everyone, including Stephen King, for a loop. Thankfully, the horror maestro and social commentator is here with the questions and the answers. 

During the town hall, Trump went up against anchor Kaitlan Collins and kickstarted the night by doubling down on his usual unfounded allegations of the 2020 elections being manipulated, even though he lost to Joe Biden by 7 million votes. He also dragged in the violent Jan. 6 Capitol riots by his supporters, and tried to lay the blame on then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

Trump also openly insulted and made fun of writer E. Jean Carroll, who had accused the former president of rape in a civil lawsuit that recently ended with the jury holding him liable for sexual abuse. 

But the most jarring fact is that all the lies and falsified claims Trump spewed were met with applause and laughter from the live audience even as Collins — who has been dubbed “a nasty person” by the 2024 Republican presidential candidate — tried to fact-check him. 

We know that despite the fact that all words that come out of Trump’s mouth are either dangerously nonsensical or concerningly false and toxic (or often both), there are people who have chosen to keep their sanity on a high shelf and continue to be swayed by his baseless opinions. But even keeping this low standard in mind doesn’t explain the audience’s behavior during the town hall. 

And as like us, Stephen King was also left scratching his head; he addressed the elephant in the room while looping in the sneaking suspicion we all had been harboring about what was really “rigged” last night. 

It didn’t take long for the Carrie author to figure out that he did indeed hit the nail on the head.

The same has been confirmed by several outlets that the town hall featured “a live audience of Republicans and undeclared voters.” 

Now, this is ain’t something that Trump can simply sneak into the live town hall — given that almost all his attempts at hiding his ill deeds have failed, we can confirm that the ex-president doesn’t possess this particular finesse. This probably means that CNN agreed to fill its live audience with Trump supporters — whether it was to be in his good books as the channel truly believes he is headed to win the 2024 elections, or get a bite of all the MAGA chaos, you know, for TRP’s sake. 

Well, whatever may be the case, one thing can be said for certain — Fox News got competition.