Former President Donald Trump, in a strategic move, has scheduled a town hall event with Fox News, coinciding with the timing of CNN's upcoming Republican presidential debate.
This event is set to take place in Iowa on Wednesday, January 10, at 9:00 p.m. ET. Trump's decision to hold a town hall at the same time as the CNN debate is seen as a counter-programming strategy, aiming to draw attention away from the debate and potentially impact CNN's ratings.
The town hall, to be moderated by Fox anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, will focus on key issues facing voters ahead of the Iowa Caucus.
"Fox News and Trump are counter programming the CNN Iowa debate w/ a town hall in Des Moines. Same starting time of 9pm." National Political Correspondent Alex Thompson writes on X.
In addition to Trump's town hall, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is also counter-programming the CNN debate. Ramaswamy plans to participate in a live-audience show in Des Moines with Tim Pool instead of attending the debate, citing grievances against CNN.
Vivek Ramaswamy calls CNN's Iowa debate fake and urges people to tune into Timcast instead. Additionally, he criticizes CNN:
"On Dec 13, CNN disgracefully cut short its own Iowa town hall with me after I correctly pointed out uncomfortable truths about Jan 6, which CNN instantly dismissed as 'conspiracy theories.'"
"On Dec 14, CNN then threatened my campaign on the phone with a cease-and-desist and had YouTube black out the town hall after it garnered over 200,000 views on YouTube in a matter of hours. Yet, Nikki Haley’s CNN town hall was still up after 6 months (with only 68,000 total views, sad)."
