CNN town hall with former President Donald Trump

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Clinton, abortion, border wall: CNN fact-checks Donald Trump after town hall
02:12 - Source: CNN

What we covered here

Our live coverage has ended. See CNN’s fact checks of the town hall and read more about the event in the posts below.

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Here are some takeaways from Trump’s CNN town hall in New Hampshire

Former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10.

The 2024 presidential campaign is only beginning, but former President Donald Trump made clear that his third bid for the White House will feel very much like the first two.

Trump might be trying a new tack in this campaign, running what is, to date, a more conventional race with less internal drama. But when pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, the 76-year-old showed on Wednesday night that he is very much the same person Americans came to know in 2016, throughout his four years in office, and in the aftermath of his 2020 election defeat.

Unsurprisingly, the mostly Trump-loyal audience lapped it up. Trump’s place in the GOP primary polls, as he often mentioned, is strong. In New Hampshire on Wednesday night, he showed why.

Here are some takeaways from Trump’s CNN town hall:

Trump says GOP should be willing to blow up debt ceiling: The US is on the brink of a catastrophic default on its sovereign debt. Asked what his advice is to Republicans in Washington, Trump was clear. “If they don’t give you massive cuts,” he said, “you’re going to have to do a default.” The US hit the debt ceiling set by Congress in January. That forced the Treasury Department to begin taking so-called extraordinary measures to keep the government paying its bills. And Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently warned that the US could default on its obligations as soon as June 1 if Congress doesn’t address the debt limit.

Trump makes dismissive comments about Carroll: A little more than 24 hours after a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, and awarded her $5 million, the former president denied the accusations and again said he had never met Carroll. “This woman, I don’t know her. I never met her. I have no idea who she is,” Trump said, before going off on an odd tangent about her former husband and a pet.

Trump also brushed off a question over whether the verdict would hurt his standing with female voters, saying he doubted it. The reaction from the Trump-friendly audience appeared to support his opinion – they laughed at his jokes and other dismissive comments about Carroll.

Trump doesn’t say if he would back Ukraine in war with Russia: Trump refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to prevail in its war with invading Russia.“I don’t think in terms of winning and losing,” he said, “I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people.” Asked to choose a side he would prefer to win, Trump again demurred. “I want everyone to stop dying,” he said before promising to end the war in “24 hours.”

Trump suggests family separation immigration policy could return: Trump said he would return to one of the harshest immigration enforcement policies imposed by his administration: separating migrant families at the US-Mexico border. “When you say to a family that if you come, we’re going to break you up, they don’t come,” Trump said. His comments come as Title 42, the Trump-era pandemic public health restriction that became a key tool officials used to expel migrants at the US-Mexico border, is set to expire Thursday.

Trump was vague on federal abortion ban: Trump repeatedly ducked questions about whether he would sign into law a federal abortion ban, as well as questions regarding after how many weeks into a pregnancy abortion should be made illegal. He touted the Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v. Wade’s federal abortion rights as “such a great victory” – and one made possible by his appointment of three conservative justices. Trump said he supports exemptions to abortion bans for cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is threatened. “We now have a great negotiating ability, and I think we’re going to be able to get something done,” Trump said.

Read more takeaways from tonight’s town hall here and read our team’s fact checks here.

Trump has a history of insulting women by calling them "nasty"

Former President Donald Trump points at CNN's Kaitlan Collins during the town hall.

One of the many jarring moments during CNN’s town hall with former President Donald Trump occurred when the moderator, CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, was asking Trump why he held on to classified documents when he left the White House. The FBI later recovered them from Mar a Lago by executing a search warrant.

When Collins pointed out that the difference between Trump and Joe Biden, who also faces questions about classified documents found at his house but who didn’t ignore a subpoena, Trump interrupted her.

“Are you ready? Can I talk?” Trump demanded. “Do you mind?”

“Yeah, I would like for you to answer the question. That’s why I asked it,” Collins said.  

“It’s very simple that you’re a nasty person, I’ll tell you,” Trump said, attempting to insult her as his supporters in the crowd cheered.

“Can you answer why you held on to the documents?” Collins asked again, at which point Trump launched into a rambling answer that boils down to he was negotiating with the National Archives during the year-plus when the government was seeking them.

It’s the insult to Collins’ face, calling her “nasty,” that was jarring. And the cheering crowd made it more so.

The word has long been a favorite insult of Trump’s, often hurled at women who frustrate him.

He called Hillary Clinton a “nasty woman” at the close of the final presidential debate in 2016.

He’s used it on Vice President Kamala Harris and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Of Meghan Markle, who had criticized him, in 2019, Trump told a British newspaper, “I didn’t know that she was nasty.”

After he hurled the insult at Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen later that summer, the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake documented 14 times Trump had used the insult to describe a woman. He found even more instances of Trump using the word to describe a man, although some of those appeared to be complements.

Fact check: Trump's claims about the classified documents he took to Mar-a-Lago

Former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10.

Former President Donald Trump claimed that the classified documents from the White House were “automatically declassified” when he took them to Mar-a-Lago.

Facts First: There is no evidence to back up this assertion. Trump and his team have not provided any proof that Trump actually conducted some sort of broad declassification of the documents that ended up at Mar-a-Lago – and, so far, his lawyers notably have not argued in their court filings that Trump did so.

The Justice Department said in an August 2022 court filing that Trump’s representatives never asserted that documents had been declassified—not in January 2022 when they voluntarily turned over 15 boxes that included 184 unique documents with classification markings, nor in June 2022 when Trump’s team responded to a subpoena by returning another batch that included 38 additional unique documents with classification markings.

In addition, 18 former top Trump administration officials, including two former White House chiefs of staff who spoke on the record, told CNN at the time that they never heard of a standing Trump declassification order when they were serving in the administration and that they now believe the claim is false. The former officials used words like “ludicrous,” “ridiculous” and “bullsh*t.”

“Total nonsense,” said one person who served as a senior White House official. “If that’s true, where is the order with his signature on it? If that were the case, there would have been tremendous pushback from the Intel Community and DoD, which would almost certainly have become known to Intel and Armed Services Committees on the Hill.”

Some New Hampshire voters say Trump focused too much on 2020 election and should instead look forward

A group of eight undeclared voters from New Hampshire.

Undeclared and Republican voters from New Hampshire, who were in the audience for the CNN town hall with Donald Trump, said that the former president should have focused more on the future instead of the 2020 election.

CNN asked voters about their thoughts on Trump’s overall performance as well. Out of eight audience members participating in the post-town hall discussion, only one said that they would vote for Trump in 2024. The rest said they remain undecided.

Watch the full discussion here:

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07:06 - Source: CNN

Fact check: Trump's comments about violence during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol

Former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10.

Former President Donald Trump asserted Wednesday night that “a couple” of the January 6 rioters “probably got out of control,” comparing the insurrection to left-leaning protests that turned violent in other cities.

Facts First: This statement is false. Hundreds of rioters have been charged with violence toward police on January 6 and Trump downplaying of the violence and equivocating the insurrection with social justice protests fails to recognize the severity of the attack on the Capitol.

The January 6 riot of by Trump supporters who overran the Capitol has resulted in the largest law enforcement response in modern history – because of the sheer amount of violence on the ground, especially toward police, that day.

The number of rioters who’ve been charged with violence toward police is in the hundreds.

According to the Justice Department this week, 346 people face federal charges for assaulting, resisting or impeding officers or other employees. That includes more than 100 people charged with using a weapon or causing serious injury to an officer. About five dozen have pleaded guilty to felony charges for these types of crimes.

And the FBI is still seeking information to identify more than 220 others who may have committed violent crimes on the Capitol grounds.

Even Trump-appointed federal judges have countered claims that left-leaning rioters in Portland, for instance, acted similarly to the pro-Trump crowd on January 6.

Judge Trevor McFadden wrote when handling a January 6 rioter’s case in 2021: “Although both Portland and January 6 rioters attacked federal buildings, the Portland defendants primarily attacked at night, meaning that they raged against a largely vacant courthouse. In contrast, the January 6 rioters attacked the Capitol in broad daylight. And many entered it.”

And another federal judge in DC, Carl Nichols, wrote: “The Portland rioters’ conduct, while obviously serious, did not target a proceeding prescribed by the Constitution and established to ensure a peaceful transition of power. Nor did the Portland rioters, unlike those who assailed America’s Capitol in 2021, make it past the buildings’ outer defenses.”

How the Biden camp views Trump's CNN town hall performance

President Joe Biden speaks on the debt limit during an event at SUNY Westchester Community College on Wednesday, May 10, in Valhalla, New York.

President Joe Biden did not watch CNN’s town hall with former President Donald Trump, a source familiar with the president’s evening said.

Biden was flying from New York City to Washington, D.C. while the event took place, and televisions aboard Air Force One were tuned to another channel — except in the press cabin, which watched CNN.

But Biden’s campaign team and Democratic officials were closely watching and believed several of the former president’s comments will serve as fodder for advertisements and digital content going forward.

A source familiar with the campaign’s thinking said they believe Trump’s messaging and efforts to double down on issues like election denialism will alienate voters and that the town hall showed Biden’s campaign messaging from 2022, the midterms and 2024 will prove to be the right one. Advisers believe they can leverage Trump’s comments on abortion, debt default, and refusing to say whether he’d accept the results of the upcoming election. 

One Democratic official described Trump’s comments on overturning Roe v. Wade as a “home run for us” as they seek to argue women’s reproductive rights are under attack by the GOP.

The Biden campaign is already working to pinpoint moments from the town hall that they can turn into ads and digital content, including Trump’s comments on January 6, election denialism, abortion and other comments containing misogynistic rhetoric.

Biden’s political account has already tweeted a video featuring the former president’s comments about January 6 juxtaposed with images of the insurrectionists at the US Capitol in 2021.

Fact check: Trump's claims about E. Jean Carroll and the civil trial jury verdict

Former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10.

A day after a Manhattan federal jury found former President Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll, Trump claimed that the jury in the civil trial found he did not rape her and said he “didn’t do anything else either.”

“They said ‘he didn’t rape her,’ and I didn’t do anything else either,” Trump said.

Facts First: This statement requires more context. While the jury did not find that Carroll had proven rape, it did find that she proved Trump committed sexual abuse, sufficient to hold him liable for battery.

Carroll alleged Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then later defamed her when he denied her claim.

In the civil suit, the jury had to determine whether Carroll’s legal team proved that Trump committed battery against Carroll by a preponderance of the evidence.

While it did not determine that Carroll’s team had proven rape – the state’s law says that a person is liable for rape when a person forces sexual intercourse with another person without their consent – it did find that they proved Trump committed sexual abuse.

The jury had been instructed that a person is liable for sexual abuse when they subject another person without consent to sexual contact, which under New York law means “any touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person for the purpose of gratifying the sexual desire of either party.”

Analysis: Trump playing to his base at town hall could open the door to other Republican primary challengers

Former President Donald Trump’s answers to questions from New Hampshire voters about a variety of topics at the CNN town hall Wednesday may have opened the door for other Republicans to challenge him in the 2024 presidential primary race, Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White House director of communications and CNN political commentator, said.

The former president often dodged directly answering questions and giving specific policy stances in the town hall, such as not saying if he would sign a federal abortion ban or if he wanted Ukraine or Russia to win the war. Trump repeated his election lies and attempted to repaint his role during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

Issues like crime and the economy, however, are what are on the minds of most voters on a day-to-day basis, Farah Griffin said.

Farah Griffin pointed to a statement from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ super PAC criticizing Trump as an example of how other candidates could be taking advantage.

“After 76 years, Trump still doesn’t know where he stands on important conservative issues like supporting life and the 2nd amendment. How does that Make America Great Again?” the statement said.

The super PAC in a tweet also touched on several issues including possible pardons for January 6 rioters and the investigation into classified documents at Mar-a-Lago — topics that DeSantis has not criticized Trump over and in some cases has outright avoided discussing at all. 

“This to me actually became an opening for a Republican to take him on and say, if you want a lot of the policies — not insane things like family separation — and you don’t want chaos and anti-democratic positions,” Farah Griffin said.

CNN’s Steve Contorno and Alayna Treene contributed reporting to this post.

Former and current GOP governors react to Trump's town hall performance

Former and current Republican governors reacted to former President Trump’s claims throughout CNN’s town hall in New Hampshire on Wednesday evening.

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu: The Republican governor told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Trump didn’t say anything that he thinks will help him win the GOP nomination for president. “It was kind of the same old thing, the same old regurgitation. He had a chance to move on from 2020, he didn’t do it. He had a chance to own some of the issues of January 6, what his role there was. He didn’t do it. He had the chance to take shots at Joe Biden, he didn’t do it,” Sununu said.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: After Donald Trump said he would end Russia’s war in Ukraine in 24 hours, the Republican tweeted that “despite how ridiculous that is to say, I suspect he would try to do it by turning Ukraine over to Putin and Russia. #Putin’sPuppet.”

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson: The 2024 challenger to Trump said on CNN that the former president “had a weak performance and he’s locked in the past.”

“He had a goal, I’m sure, to expand his base to be able to prove that he can attract independents and the suburban voters. He failed that test. He narrowed his base of support, he’s locked in the past, he didn’t address the issues (of) the future,” the Republican said.

“Whenever he was asked about the economy, he gave one brief response on energy policy, but really didn’t address the broad range of things we have in our economy to get it going again,” he added.

Fact Check: Trump's phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state

Former President Donald Trump, when asked Wednesday about the now-notorious phone call he made to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and staff about election results, claimed “I didn’t ask them to find anything.”

Facts First: This is a brazenly false claim, as CNN and other organizations obtained recordings of the call, in which Trump repeatedly suggests that Georgia election officials should be able to find thousands of votes and fraudulent ballots. Specifically, Trump said, “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” one more than he lost by.

Trump also told Raffensberger, a GOP official, “We think that if you check the signatures – a real check of the signatures going back in Fulton County you’ll find at least a couple of hundred thousand of forged signatures of people who have been forged.”

It’s worth noting that Trump’s assertions of forged signatures and missing or miscounted votes were also baseless. The state certified its election results three times under Raffensperger’s leadership and found no mass voter fraud.

Town hall audience reaction shows "enormous grip" Trump has on the Republican party, John King says

Audience members listen as former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall.

The audience’s reaction during the CNN town hall in New Hampshire with former President Donald Trump shows the influence he still has on the Republican Party, CNN’s John King said.

King noted CNN reached out to Republican undeclared voters in New Hampshire to participate in the town hall, showing that the response was “an honest reflection of Republican beliefs in New Hampshire.”

He added: “(Trump) is, by far, and away, the Republican frontrunner. Nobody votes for, what, seven months? So, there’s time to see. But he has this enormous grip on the Republican Party. He knows that. He is celebrating it. That’s why he mocked (Florida Gov.) Ron DeSantis and the others. But there is zero evidence, and you just saw it on live TV, that he wants to change, will think about changing, even for strategic reasons.”

Here's what former President Donald Trump had to say about key topics at the New Hampshire town hall

Former President Donald Trump speaks to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in a CNN Republican Town Hall at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10, 2023.

Former President Donald Trump took questions from Republican and undeclared voters in New Hampshire at the town hall moderated by “CNN This Morning” anchor Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday night.

Trump remained defiant about his lies regarding the 2020 election, as well as the many investigations into him – making clear that he’s sticking to the script he’s delivered over the past two years on conservative media.

Here is some of what he said on key topics:

  • Election lies: Trump again refused to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 presidential election several times, and instead reiterated false claims that the election was rigged. CNN’s Collins continuously pushed back and pointed to statements by Trump’s own election officials noting the election was conducted fairly. He later only said he would accept the 2024 presidential election results if he believed they were “honest.”
  • January 6 insurrection: Trump blamed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi among others, saying they were at fault for the security failures on January 6, 2021. Trump falsely claimed that he called on the National Guard to intervene during the riot and in an extended exchange with Collins about the riot, Trump attempted to repaint his role during the insurrection. He also said he would pardon “a large portion” of rioters.
  • Mike Pence: Trump said that he does not feel like he owes his former vice president an apology. Pence has said the former president endangered his life during the January 6 insurrection. “No, because he did something wrong. He should’ve put the votes back to the state legislatures and I think we would’ve had a different outcome,” Trump said, though Pence did not have the authority to reject election results.
  • E. Jean Carroll: Trump continued to deny knowing the columnist and denied accusations, just a day after a jury found that he was liable for sexually abusing her in a department store. The former president also ridiculed Carroll and said he does not believe the verdict disqualifies him from being president or will have an impact on women voters.
  • The economy: If reelected, Trump said his solution to inflation would be drilling for more oil in the US. The former president then claimed that under his presidency, the country was energy independent and that the cost of gas went down to record lows. You can read a fact check on those claims here.
  • The debt ceiling: Trump said the US should default on its debt if the White House does not agree to Republican spending cuts. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently warned that the US could default on its obligations as soon as June 1 if Congress doesn’t address the debt limit. The White House and GOP Republicans are in a standoff over how to resolve the issue.
  • Gun violence: The former president pledged to protect the Second Amendment if he is back in the White House. He said he would address mental health problems as well as “do numerous things” to address mass shootings, including hiring more security guards for schools and what he called “hardening” entrances to establishments.
  • Abortion: Trump would not say if he would sign a federal abortion ban if he was reelected or at how many weeks during pregnancy he would support a ban. Trump said he would “make a determination what he thinks is great for the country and what’s fair for the country.” He argued those in the anti-abortion movement are “in a very good negotiating position right now” because of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
  • The war in Ukraine: Trump said he would meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and with Russian President Vladimir Putin and solve the war in Ukraine “in one day, 24 hours.” He would not say if he believed Putin was a war criminal and said the Russian leader “made a mistake” going into Ukraine, arguing he wouldn’t have done so if Trump was president. Trump wouldn’t say whether he wants Ukraine or Russia to win the war.
  • Classified documents: The former president insisted that he had “every right” to take classified documents with him after he left the White House. He falsely claimed that the documents became declassified when he took them with him.

Fact Check: Trump's claims on voter ID

Former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10, 2023.

Former President Donald Trump, discussing the upcoming 2024 presidential election, said: “I hope we’re going to have very honest elections. We should have voter ID.”

Facts First: It’s misleading at best for Trump to claim voter ID doesn’t currently exist in US election.

There are several situations in which casting a ballot without showing an ID would be legal, specifically in the 15 states (plus Washington, DC) that rely on other forms of voter verification. In the rest of the states, voters are required to present some form of identification before casting ballots.

It is true that most Democrats have been against stricter voter-ID laws in the past, but on the grounds that these laws could disenfranchise voters who may not have access to necessary identification – not in order to illegally obtain votes.

Republicans have wielded this Democratic position on voter ID laws to paint Democrats as complicit in election fraud despite the fact that voter fraud is exceedingly rare – and that even states that don’t require ID have other methods to prevent fraud, like signature checks.

Watch:

Fact check: Trump's comments on gas prices and energy independence

Former President Donald Trump speaks to an audience member during a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10, 2023.

Former President Donald Trump claimed gas prices are higher under Biden than under his administration, and that Biden ended US energy independence.

Facts First: Trump’s claims about gas prices are misleading. Trump claimed Wednesday that he got gas prices down to $1.87 – and “even lower” – but they increased to $7, $8 or even $9 under Biden. While the price of a gallon of regular gas did briefly fall to $1.87 (and lower) during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the national average for regular gas on Trump’s last day in office, January 20, 2021, was much higher than that – $2.393 per gallon, according to data provided to CNN by the American Automobile Association. On Thursday, the national average for gas was $3.53, per AAA data, not $6, $7 or $8. California, the state with the highest prices as usual, had an average of $4.8, per AAA.

Trump’s claim that Biden shut down American energy is false even if Trump was talking specifically about non-renewable energy. US crude oil production in 2022 was the second-highest on record, behind only production in Trump-era 2019, and production in early 2023 has been near record highs. US production of dry natural gas set a new record in 2022. So did US exports of crude oil and petroleum products.

Biden has also approved some significant fossil fuel projects including the controversial Willow oil drilling project Alaska, and his administration outpaced Trump’s when it came to approving oil and gas drilling permits in Biden’s first two years in office.

Fact check: Trump's claims about security on January 6

Former President Donald Trump walks offstage during a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10, 2023.

Former President Donald Trump tried to blame then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the violence on January 6, 2021 – when his own supporters stormed the US Capitol, claiming she was “in charge” of security that day.

Facts First: This is false. The speaker of the House is not in charge of Capitol security. That’s the responsibility of the Capitol Police Board, which oversees the US Capitol Police and approves requests for National Guard assistance.

Trump’s former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller also told lawmakers that he was never given a formal order by Trump to have 10,000 troops ready to be sent to the Capitol on January 6. “There was no direct, there was no order from the president,” Miller said.

Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows sent an email saying the National Guard would be present to “protect pro Trump people” in the lead up to the US Capitol insurrection, according to the report released by the January 6 committee.

In pictures: CNN's town hall with Donald Trump

Former President Donald Trump took the stage on Wednesday night for a CNN town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Trump once again refused to concede that he lost the 2020 election and repeated his false claims about it being stolen.

See photos from the evening inside the Koonz Theatre in the Dana Center for the Humanities at St. Anselm College:

Former President Donald Trump speaks to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins during the town hall.
New Hampshire GOP primary voters listen to the town hall at St. Anselm College.
Trump holds notes of his tweets. The top of the page says, "SUSPENDED TWEETS (Now Restored on Twitter)."
The town hall took place in the Koonz Theatre in the Dana Center for the Humanities at St. Anselm College.
Trump gestures while answering a question.
Trump walks on stage at the start of the town hall.

"Do you want four more years of that?" Biden tweets after CNN’s town hall with Donald Trump

President Joe Biden tweeted out a fundraising appeal from his political account in the minutes after the end of CNN’s town hall with former President Donald Trump. 

Fact check: What Trump said about intelligence agents and their impact on the 2020 election

As part of his argument that the 2020 election was “rigged,” Donald Trump claimed 51 intelligence agents “made a 16-point difference” in the outcome of the election.

Facts First: There is no evidence for this.

Trump appears to have been referring to a letter signed by former intelligence agents weeks before the 2020 election. The letter stated that the release of emails purportedly belonging to then-candidate Joe Biden’s son Hunter, which had been generating sensational stories in right-wing media, had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

No proof of Russian involvement in the release of those emails has emerged, and Republicans have argued that the letter helped discredit negative stories about the Biden family just before the election. But there’s also no proof that the letter swayed the outcome of the election.

Trump justifies comments he made on "Access Hollywood" tape, says he won't take it back

Former President Donald Trump points to an audience member during the CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Former President Donald Trump said that he will not take back the comments he made on the “Access Hollywood” tape about being able to grab women.

The tape came up in Trump’s tape deposition as part of the civil case with writer E. Jean Carroll. A Manhattan federal jury found Tuesday that Trump sexually abused Carroll in the spring of 1996 and awarded her $5 million for battery and defamation.

“There was a taped deposition of you from October, and you defended the comments you made on that ‘Access Hollywood’ tape about being able to grab women how you want. Do you stand by those comments?” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked.

“You would like me to take that back. I can’t take it back because it happens to be true,” Trump added.

Trump says he would accept 2024 election results if he believes "it's an honest election"

Former President Donald Trump said he would accept the 2024 presidential results if he were the Republican nominee if he believes “it’s an honest election.”

“If I think it’s an honest election I would be honored to,” Trump said.

Pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins if he would accept the results regardless of the outcome, Trump reiterated, “If it’s an honest election, correct, I will.”

This comes after the former president repeated false claims that the 2020 election was rigged throughout Wednesday’s CNN town hall.

Trump says he had "every right" to take classified documents with him after leaving White House

Asked why he took classified documents with him after leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump said he “had every right to under the Presidential Records Act.”

“I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified,” Trump said during Wednesday night’s CNN town hall.

Collins corrected Trump saying the Presidential Records Act does not say a former president can take documents home but says they are the property of the federal government when a president is out of office.

After Trump and Collins went back and forth on previous presidents taking classified documents, Collins pushed back saying previous presidents didn’t wait to return classified documents and asked numerous times why Trump waited to return classified documents when he knew the federal government was seeking them and subpoenaed him to return them.

Trump did not answer the question but instead insulted Collins.

“It’s very simple — you’re a nasty person, I’ll tell you,” Trump said.

More context: Special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at Trump’s resort and into parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

The Justice Department investigation continues into whether documents from the Trump White House were illegally mishandled when they were taken to Mar-a-Lago in Florida after he left office. A federal grand jury has interviewed potential witnesses regarding how Trump handled the documents.

The National Archives, charged with collecting and sorting presidential material, has previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records.

Any unauthorized retention or destruction of White House documents could violate a criminal law that prohibits the removal or destruction of official government records, legal experts told CNN.

Trump won't say whether he wants Russia or Ukraine to win war

Former President Donald Trump wouldn’t say whether or not he wants Russia or Ukraine to win the war when pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Wednesday in the town hall.

When asked by Collins for a second time whether or not the former president wants Ukraine to win, Trump still would not answer directly, instead saying that he wants “everybody to stop dying.”

“Russians and Ukrainians, I want them to stop dying,” he said. “And I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”

Collins pressed her question for a third time, to which Trump replied, “I’ll say this: I want Europe to put up more money.”

He called on Europe to “equalize.”

“They have plenty of money,” he said.

Trump won't say if he believes Putin is a war criminal but does claim he "made a mistake" going in Ukraine

Former President Donald Trump gestures during a CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall.

Former President Donald Trump would not say if he believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a war criminal in the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Trump said that is something that “should be discussed later.”

The former president also said he thinks that “Putin made a mistake.”

When asked to elaborate, Trump said, “His mistake was going in. He would have never gone in if I was president,” referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Trump on Russia's war in Ukraine: "If I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours"

Former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College.

Kaitlyn Boissoneau, a Republican voter who will be voting for the first time in 2024, asked former President Donald Trump if he supports US military aid to Ukraine and how he would deal with the threat posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump said the war would not have happened if he were president.

Trump added that he would meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and with Putin.

“They both have weaknesses and they both have strengths and within 24 hours that war will be settled. It’ll be over, it’ll be absolutely over,” Trump said.

US aid to Ukraine: This week, the US announced a $1.2 billion aid package to Ukraine intended to “bolster its air defenses” and “sustain its artillery ammunition needs,” with Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces looming. 

With the new package announcement, the US has committed $37.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including $36.9 billion since the beginning of the war in February 2022.

Trump doesn’t say whether he would sign federal abortion ban 

Audience members watch as President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10, 2023.

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday would not say whether he would sign a federal abortion ban if reelected when pressed several times by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, but argued those in the anti-abortion movement are “in a very good negotiating position right now” because of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

Trump said he would “make a determination what he thinks is great for the country and what’s fair for the country” when asked if he would sign a federal abortion ban. 

As many states move to restrict abortion rights after the Supreme Court ruled there is no constitutional right to an abortion, Trump would not specify whether he would support a federal ban or at how many weeks during a pregnancy he would support a ban.

“I’m looking at a solution that’s going to work. Very complex issue for the country. You have people on both sides of an issue, but we are now in a very strong position. Pro-life people are in a strong position to make a deal that’s going to be good and going to be satisfactory for them. If you weren’t able to get rid of, you wouldn’t be having a discussion, if you weren’t able to get rid of Roe V. Wade,” Trump said.

More context: In the wake of last year’s Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, many Republican-led states have enacted sweeping abortion restrictions. But unpopularity, demonstrated in some instances by electoral evidence, over severe restrictions has prompted Republicans to reconsider the political wisdom of enacting near-total bans on the procedure, and House Republicans have recently stepped away from pushing a federal abortion ban

Trump defends Title 42 policy ahead of expected expiration tomorrow

Former President Donald Trump defended his Title 42 immigration policy and implied that he would handle the crisis at the US border with similar methods he used during his previous term.

Republican voter Jennifer Simmons asked, “Title 42 is expected to expire tomorrow. Our southern border and now our northern border are experiencing record migration. We learned on May 2 that the Biden administration plans on deploying 1,500 troops to the southern border. Do you agree with the deploying troops to the border, and how would a Trump administration slow down the rate of migrants coming across our borders?”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins then clarified that the conditions under which Title 42 was enacted was because of the Covid-19 pandemic. “The reason it’s ending is because the health policy of the Covid era pandemic emergency is coming to an end. That’s what Title 42 was. You put it in place because of Covid,” Collins said.

Collins then pressed Trump on what his immigration policy would be if he was reelected, citing criticism of Republican lawmakers of his border wall plan.

“I did finish the wall. I built the wall, I built hundreds of miles of wall. And I finished it,” Trump claimed. Collins noted that he actually only built 52 miles of new border wall.

Asked if he would reinstitute his controversial family separation policy, Trump said, “When you say to a family that, ‘If you come we’re going to break you up,’ they don’t come.”

Trump says he will protect 2nd Amendment if he's reelected

Former President Donald Trump said he will protect the Second Amendment and address mental health problems if reelected in 2024.

If elected, he said he would “do numerous things” to address mass shootings, including hiring more security guards for schools and what he called “hardening” entrances to establishments.

“You have to make schools safe,” he said.

Trump also said that many people who do not own guns are “not going to be very safe.”

Some background: There have been more than 200 mass shootings in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

President Joe Biden has taken more than 20 executive actions on guns since taking office, including regulating the use of “ghost guns” and sales of stabilizing braces that effectively turn pistols into rifles. He also signed a bipartisan bill in 2022 which expands background checks and provides federal funding for so-called “red flag laws” – although it failed to ban any weapons and fell far short of what Biden and his party had advocated for.

White House officials have been sober about the political realities Democrats face with the current makeup of Congress, where Republicans in control of the House have rejected Biden’s calls for an assault weapons ban. Even when both chambers of Congress were controlled by Democrats during the first two years of Biden’s term, an assault weapon ban gained little traction, in part because of a 60-vote threshold necessary for passage.

Trump on debt ceiling: US should default if the White House does not agree to Republican spending cuts

Former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10.

Marta Saravia, an undeclared voter, asked former President Donald Trump what he thought of the debt situation and how the country can move forward.

“We have to start paying off debt … I say to the Republicans out there — Congressmen, Senators — if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re going to have to do a default, and I don’t believe they’re going to do a default because I think the Democrats will absolutely cave will absolutely cave because you don’t want to have that happen, but it’s better than what we’re doing right now because we’re spending money like drunken sailors,” Trump said.

Collins asked Trump to clarify, asking him if he thinks the US should default if the White House does not agree to spending cuts the Republicans are demanding.

More context: The US hit the debt ceiling set by Congress in January. That forced the Treasury Department to begin taking extraordinary measures to keep the government paying its bills. And Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently warned that the US could default on its obligations as soon as June 1 if Congress doesn’t address the debt limit.  

The White House and GOP Republicans are in a standoff over how to resolve the issue. House Republicans want to attach spending reductions to a debt ceiling increase and have passed a debt limit plan that does just that. But Biden and congressional Democrats have insisted on passing a clean increase on the debt limit before addressing a framework for spending. 

A breach of the US debt ceiling risks sparking a 2008-style economic catastrophe that wipes out millions of jobs and sets America back for generations, Moody’s Analytics has warned. The impact could include delayed Social Security payments, late paychecks for federal employees and veterans and a direct hit to Americans’ investments. 

Trump says his solution for easing economic hardship and inflation is drilling for more oil

Former President Donald Trump walks on stage to participate in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10.

Former President Donald Trump said that, if reelected, his solution to inflation in the country would be drilling for more oil in the US.

Danielle Rieger, a Republican activist, asked Trump, “If elected president again what is the first thing you will do to help bring down the cost to make things more affordable?”

“Drill, baby, drill,” Trump responded. The former president then claimed that under his presidency, the country was energy independent and that the cost of gas went down to record lows.

He then claimed that the tax bill that passed during his term helped create,”the greatest economy in history.”

Trump again denies knowing E. Jean Carroll as he responds to civil jury verdict

Former President Donald Trump speaks with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in a CNN Republican Town Hall at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Former President Donald Trump said he does not think a recent verdict in which a Manhattan federal jury found that he was liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room disqualifies him from being president or will have an impact on women voters.

He denied knowing the columnist and denied the accusations. Trump ridiculed Carroll while discussing the trial, only a day after the verdict was handed down.

“A Manhattan jury found you sexually abused writer E. Jean You’ve denied this. But what do you say to voters who say it disqualifies you from being president?” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked.

Trump answered that he didn’t think there were many voters who would think that. He claimed that the case was made up and that it was all politically motivated. He repeated that he did not know Carroll, but said that he took a photo “years ago” with her and her husband.

When asked if the jury’s decision would deter women from voting for him, the former president said, “No, I don’t think so.”

Some context:  A Manhattan federal jury found Tuesday that Trump sexually abused Carroll in the spring of 1996 and awarded her $5 million for battery and defamation.

Carroll alleged Trump raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store and then defamed her when he denied her claim, said she wasn’t his type and suggested she made up the story to boost sales of her book. Trump denied all wrongdoing. He does not face any jail time as a result of the civil verdict.

While the jury found that Trump sexually abused her, sufficient to hold him liable for battery, the jury did not find that Carroll proved he raped her.

Carroll filed the lawsuit last November under the “New York State Adult Survivors Act,” a state bill that opened a look-back window for sexual assault allegations like Carroll’s with long-expired statutes of limitation.

Trump says he will pardon "a large portion" of January 6 rioters

Former President Donald Trump holds notes of his tweets during a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.

When asked by retired attorney Wayne Beyer whether or not he would pardon January 6 rioters convicted of federal offenses, former President Donald Trump said he would “most likely” do it should he win reelection in 2024.

Trump noted that he won’t be able to pardon “every single one” but said “it will be a large portion of them.”

Trump says he doesn't feel he owes former VP Mike Pence an apology for January 6 insurrection

Former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked former President Donald Trump if he felt he owed Former Vice President Mike Pence an apology for the events of January 6.

Pence has said the former president endangered his life on January 6.

Collins corrected Trump saying Pence did not have the authority to reject election results.

Watch:

Trump defends his actions during January 6 riot at US Capitol and repeats false claims

Former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Former President Donald Trump repeated false claims regarding his actions during the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

Trump blamed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi among others, saying they were at fault for the security failures.

“One of the big problems was that Nancy Pelosi — crazy Nancy as I affectionately call her. Crazy Nancy and the mayor of Washington were charged as you know of security,” Trump said during Wednesday night’s CNN town hall. “And they did not do their job.”

Trump falsely claimed that he called on the National Guard to intervene during the riot, which CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pushed back and noted that he did not, according to former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller.

In an extended exchange with Collins about the riot Trump attempted to repaint his role during the insurrection.

More context: On January 6, 2021, Trump’s supporters broke into the US Capitol building while Congress certified Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. 

The House select committee that investigated the attack uncovered dramatic evidence of Trump’s actions before and on January 6, especially efforts to use the levers of government to overturn the election. 

In a symbolic move, the committee referred Trump to the Justice Department on at least four criminal charges before it concluded at the end of 2022, ahead of Republicans taking control of the House. 

Trump again refuses to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election

Former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10.

Former President Donald Trump again refused to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 presidential election, instead reiterating false claims that the election was rigged.

Trump, speaking at a CNN town hall in front of New Hampshire voters Wednesday night, repeated false claims of election fraud.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins pressed the former president, asking directly if he would publically acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election. Collins pointed out that the election wasn’t rigged, and pointed to statements by Trump’s own election officials noting the election was conducted fairly.

“It was not a rigged election. It was not a stolen election. You and your supporters lost more than 60 court cases on the election. It’s been nearly two and a half years. Can you publicly acknowledge that you did lose the 2020 election?” she said.

Trump did not directly answer the question.

“They found millions of votes on camera, on government cameras, where they were stuffing ballot boxes. So with all of that, I think it’s a shame what happened. I think it’s a very sad thing for our country. I think it’s a very sad thing, frankly, for the world, because if you look at what’s gotten to our country, our country has gone to hell,” Trump said, continuing on to criticize the Biden administration.

NOW: CNN's town hall with Donald Trump has begun

Former President Donald Trump participates in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN's Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10, 2023.

CNN’s town hall with Donald Trump is underway in New Hampshire and the former president will take questions from Republicans and undeclared voters as the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary field.

“CNN This Morning” anchor Kaitlan Collins is moderating. This is Trump’s first appearance on CNN since the 2016 election.

New Hampshire, home to the first-in-the-nation GOP primary, is also home to many swing voters. Trump handily won the primaries there in 2016 and 2020 before losing the state in both general elections.

He is facing voters the day after a Manhattan federal jury found the former president sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in 1996 and awarded her $5 million for battery and defamation. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and called the verdict in the civil case a “total disgrace.”

Last month in New York, he pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump also faces potential legal peril in both Washington, DC – where a special counsel is leading a pair of investigations – and in Georgia, where the Fulton County district attorney plans to announce charges this summer from the investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State.

The town hall is streaming live without requiring a cable log-in, on CNN.com’s homepage and across mobile devices via CNN’s apps for iOS and Android, on CNN OTT and mobile apps under “TV Channels,” or CNNgo where available.

The town hall will also be available On Demand beginning Thursday, May 11, to pay TV subscribers via CNN.com, the CNN OTT app, and Cable Operator Platforms.

CNN’s Jeremy Herb contributed reporting to this post.

What the scene is like at tonight's CNN town hall in New Hampshire

People wait in line to enter the Koonz Theatre, which is part of the Dana Center for Humanities.

There’s a definite feel at Saint Anselm College that the 2024 presidential campaign is really beginning tonight. There’s excitement, tension and dissent in the air that recalls the build-up to a presidential debate. 

The fact that the unpredictable Donald Trump is the presidential frontrunner after a tumultuous presidency and refusal to accept the result of the 2020 election is only deepening the feeling that something big is about to happen – as town hall attendees line up to clear Secret Service security checks near protesters shouting anti-Trump slogans.

Many of the registered Republicans and voters who plan to vote in the 2024 GOP primary are hoping they will get called upon.

One Trump supporter, Karen Langella, said that she hoped that the questions would “not focus on what happened” on Tuesday when a jury found Trump sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996 in New York and that he was liable for battery and defamation after a civil trial.

Langella’s daughter, Isabella, who is an independent and shopping around for the most conservative Republican candidate, hoped that “people stick to his ideas and his policies instead of what happened 20 years ago.”

Another attendee, Al Peel, hoped to get a question to Trump about his own ideas on how to help homeless veterans. He also wanted the former president to tone down his wild antics and focus instead on policies.

“I think he’s Bozo the Clown, OK. But I love his results,” he added.

Across the road, a crowd of students held up signs reading “love Trumps hate” and “nobody is above the law,” while chanting “You’re abhorrent, you’re broke, you lost the popular vote.”

Former President Donald Trump will participate in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10.

More about the town hall location: Saint Anselm College has its own fabled history in presidential campaigns. Republican Richard Nixon made it his first stop in his successful 1968 bid for the presidency. Pretty much every one who is anyone in presidential politics has visited — from Ronald Reagan, both presidents Bush, Trump and Bernie Sanders.

The Benedictine liberal arts college hosted a fiery Democratic presidential debate days before the 2008 primary that saw Hillary Clinton win a comeback victory after Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses — though it was a false dawn for the then New York senator’s campaign.

The notable legal challenges Donald Trump faces as he runs to retake the White House in 2024

Former President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom with his attorneys Todd Blanche, Susan Necheles, Joe Tacopina and Boris Epshteyn during his arraignment at the Manhattan Criminal Court April 4, in New York City.

It’s been nearly eight years since he rode down the escalator in Trump Tower and more than two years since the January 6, 2021, insurrection, but the legal drama surrounding Donald Trump has never been more intense.

In New York, a hush money payment to an adult film star has resulted in his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury over his alleged role in the scheme — the first time in American history that a current or former president faces criminal charges.

Also in Manhattan, a federal jury just yesterday found Trump sexually abused former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and awarded her about $5 million in the battery and defamation civil case.

In Atlanta, a select grand jury has investigated the efforts by Trump and allies to overturn his election loss in Georgia in 2020.

In Washington, a Justice Department special counsel is looking at the 2020 election aftermath and the removal of presidential documents to Florida.

Trump and his company deny any wrongdoing or criminality in all matters, state and federal, and he has aggressively maintained his innocence.

Here’s an updated list of notable investigations, lawsuits and controversies the former president faces.

By the numbers: A look back at Donald Trump’s presidency

In this 2019 photo, then-President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with advisors about fentanyl in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC.

It’s long been known that former President Donald Trump’s actions while in office have upended the norms of the presidency — from his use of social media to make major announcements to his use of the pardon power to the amount of turnover in his administration.

The story of the Trump presidency cannot be fully told in numbers. But here are some numbers illustrate some of the many ways Trump and his administration defied the status quo of the executive branch.

Judicial appointments: Trump was able to successfully appoint three US Supreme Court justices, and he’s surpassed the number of federal judges appointed by George H.W. Bush — the most recent one-term president.

Earlier in 2020, Trump was also on track to appoint more federal appellate judges than any recent president at the same point in his presidency, according to the Pew Research Center. Although Trump served only four years, his changes to the makeup of federal courts will be felt long after he leaves the White House.

Executive action: As of December 11, 2020, there had been 520 presidential documents signed by Trump — including executive orders, presidential memorandums, determinations and notices — had been published in the Federal Register. Of those, 288 were executive orders and presidential memorandums, not including memos were clerical in nature.

Presidents have increasingly used executive orders and presidential memorandums interchangeably to issue directives to their agencies; they are both legally binding, though executive action can be undone by the next president.

The increased reliance on such actions has come as an increasingly gridlocked Congress has made it difficult for presidents to act on their agendas.

Obama had issued 226 executive orders and memorandums at this point in his tenure in office, while George W. Bush had signed 189.

Before becoming president, Trump complained about what he saw as Obama’s overuse of executive authority but also suggested that the government could be run like a business.

Yet Trump has already exceeded both George W. Bush and Obama in the number of published executive orders and memorandums.

Read about other key figures from his presidency here.

CNN's town hall with Donald Trump starts at 8 p.m. ET. Here's how to watch

Former President Donald Trump will participate in a CNN Republican Town Hall moderated by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at St. Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, on Wednesday, May 10.

Former President Donald Trump is set to participate in a CNN town hall soon in New Hampshire, where he’ll take questions as the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary field.

The event will be moderated by “CNN This Morning” anchor Kaitlan Collins.

The town hall will stream live without requiring a cable log-in, on CNN.com’s homepage and across mobile devices via CNN’s apps for iOS and Android, on CNN OTT and mobile apps under “TV Channels,” or CNNgo where available.

The town hall will also be available On Demand beginning Thursday, May 11, to pay TV subscribers via CNN.com, the CNN OTT app, and Cable Operator Platforms.

How Trump’s policies and actions changed the country

President Donald Trump signs policy changes he is making toward Cuba at the Manuel Artime Theater in the Little Havana neighborhood on June 16, 2017 in Miami, Florida. 

Donald Trump’s presidency was largely defined by his disregard for political norms and his historic two impeachments.

Trump purposefully sought to upend conventional domestic and foreign policy, fundamentally altering America’s role in the world. And he disrupted the status quo in Washington, recalibrating the federal government’s role in everyday American life in ways both temporary and for a longer term effect.

Some of Trump’s most consequential decisions, such as his judicial appointments, will dictate the ideological make-up of the courts for decades. And the physical reminder of his immigration and border security policies, in the form of a US-Mexico border wall, have remained etched into America’s landscape well past his presidency.

Other actions, including many issued through the use of executive authority, can be undone through the regulatory process or with the flick of Joe Biden’s pen. Still, those actions will have sometimes had a years-long impact on American lives, affecting everything from their jobs to their schools to the kinds of lightbulbs they can buy.

Read through some of the most significant ways Trump’s policies and actions changed the country here.

Democratic National Committee planning "aggressive" rapid response for Trump town hall

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is planning an “aggressive” rapid response effort for former President Donald Trump’s town hall with CNN tonight, a DNC official tells CNN.

The DNC is setting up an in-person “war room” rapid response operation to fact check the former president in real time, the official said. This will include news releases and tweets released through at least two Twitter accounts — @DNCWarRoom and @TheDemocrats.

The official said this will mark the DNC’s most aggressive posture to date in responding to any of the GOP contenders with preparations beginning as soon as the town hall was announced.

The DNC released a video on Twitter earlier today outlining elements of Trump’s record, including “embracing insurrectionists” and “attacking women’s rights.”  

President Joe Biden for his part is attending fundraisers in New York City Thursday evening and scheduled to be traveling for most of the town hall.

Why criminal investigations and civil cases will not impact Trump's ability to run for president

Former President Donald Trump exits after speaking during a rally at the Waco Regional Airport on March 25 in Waco, Texas. 

The verdict on Tuesday in E. Jean Carroll’s case against Donald Trump has no legal effect on his 2024 presidential candidacy.

For one, it is a civil case, and during the 2016 campaign, Trump also faced all sorts of civil action, like the fraud cases concerning Trump University. Those were settled shortly after he was elected and had no bearing on the requirements for the presidency laid out in the Constitution.

Trump also faces unrelated criminal exposure, most prominently in the case that Manhattan prosecutors have brought against him for hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who claimed the two had an extramarital affair (Trump denies the claim).

There are also federal criminal investigations — one concerning the mishandling of documents from his White House and another into the efforts to disrupt Congress’ 2020 election certification — are also encircling him, as is an Atlanta-based probe into the election subversion plots.

Similarly, a successful criminal prosecution of the former president is unlikely to affect, at least from a legal standpoint, his ability to be reelected to the White House.

Notably, there is a precedent for convicted felons to run for federal office — including for the office of the presidency.

Eugene Debs, a perennial socialist candidate for the White House in the early 20th century, was incarcerated on an espionage conviction when he won more than 900,000 votes in a 1920 presidential campaign.

Tonight's Trump town hall is a sign of a broader and more traditional campaign strategy

Former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign is pursuing a strategy of expanding his appeal by reaching out to audiences beyond friendly conservative media outlets, multiple advisers familiar with the strategy said, including a CNN town hall this week.

The town hall event in New Hampshire Wednesday evening, Trump’s first appearance on CNN since the 2016 election, joins a list of other signs that Trump is adopting a more traditional campaign in his third run for the White House.

The former president has surrounded himself with a more organized, experienced team to complement his unconventional campaign style. He’s also scaling back larger rallies, a Trump campaign trademark, for more intimate campaign settings and retail stops that allow the former president to engage with voters.

That approach speaks to an acknowledgment by the Trump campaign and its allies that the former president must broaden his appeal inside and outside the Republican Party if he is to clinch the GOP nomination and retake the White House in 2024, following his failed reelection bid and disappointing results by Republicans in last year’s midterm elections. The process is being driven by a team of veteran political operatives, skilled in matters such as the delegate process, who believe Trump’s path to victory cannot simply be a reprisal of his insurgent 2016 bid or his large, expensive 2020 operation.

The former president’s team has increased its outreach with traditional news outlets, taking questions from television and print correspondents on recent campaign swings from organizations Trump has spent years attacking.

Trump’s team also sees the town hall has an opportunity to draw a contrast with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has clashed with what he often refers to as “legacy media” organizations.

Keep reading here.

Trump will face questions from New Hampshire GOP primary voters. Here's why the state is key

Voting booths filled the the Ward Five Community Center during the New Hampshire primary in Concord, New Hampshire on February 11, 2020.

Wednesday’s live town hall audience will be made up of Republicans and undeclared voters who plan to vote in the GOP primary.  

This is Trump’s third trip to the Granite State since launching his campaign last fall. He handily won the primaries there in 2016 and 2020 before losing the state in both general elections.

New Hampshire is the second state to vote in the Republican presidential nominating calendar — but after the Iowa caucuses, it’s the first primary to take place. 

The Granite State has long prized its role in vetting presidential contenders, and state law protects that status: Secretary of State David Scanlan is required to set a primary date a week ahead of any other “similar contests” elsewhere on the map. Democrats have reshuffled their primary calendar, leaving some dates in flux, but the GOP has maintained New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary status. 

Though New Hampshire is among the smallest states in delegate counts, it has a history of propelling primary winners forward toward Super Tuesday with momentum — and winnowing out candidates who fail to gain traction there. 

The winners of the last two competitive New Hampshire Republican presidential primaries, Mitt Romney in 2012 and Donald Trump in 2016 went on to win the party’s nomination. 

New Hampshire’s primary allows “undeclared” voters — those who are not registered as Democrats or Republicans — to choose which primary they participate in. It’s a key voting bloc since about two-in-five New Hampshire voters are undeclared. 

The process has its quirks: Three tiny locations, Dixville Notch, Hart’s Location and Millsfield, vote at midnight and report their tiny numbers of votes immediately. Those vote tallies aren’t large enough sample sizes to be indicative of anything, but they are the only known results for nearly 20 hours, until polls elsewhere close that evening. 

Key things to know about the CNN presidential town hall in New Hampshire tonight

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the DoubleTree Manchester Downtown on Thursday, April 27, in Manchester, NH. 

Former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, will take questions from New Hampshire Republicans and undeclared voters in a CNN town hall Wednesday as a myriad of legal issues loom over his 2024 White House bid.

The town hall will be moderated by “CNN This Morning” anchor Kaitlan Collins at Saint Anselm College and is Trump’s first appearance on the network since 2016.

Trump is set to face voters as he deals with unprecedented legal clouds hanging over him and as he seeks to become only the second commander-in-chief, ever, elected to two non-consecutive terms. 

The town hall comes just a day after a Manhattan federal jury found the former president sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in 1996 and awarded her $5 million for battery and defamation.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing and called the verdict in the civil case a “total disgrace.” 

Last month in New York, he pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump also faces potential legal peril in both Washington, DC — where a special counsel is leading a pair of investigations — and in Georgia, where the Fulton County district attorney plans to announce charges this summer from the investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the Peach State.

Still, the twice-impeached former president has repeatedly said that any charges will not stop him from running for president, dismissing all of the investigations as politically motivated witch hunts.

That’s a view many GOP voters share, according to recent surveys. Nearly 70% of Republican primary voters in a recent NBC News poll said investigations into the former president “are politically motivated” and that “no other candidate is like him, we must support him.”

While a handful of rivals have entered the Republican presidential primary, and Trump’s biggest potential rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has not yet officially launched a bid — Trump has maintained a healthy lead in early GOP primary polling.

In a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Sunday, 43% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents named Trump unprompted when asked who they would like to see the party nominate in 2024, compared with 20% naming DeSantis, and 2% or less naming any other candidate.

Trump’s participation in the town hall is indicative of a broader campaign strategy to try to expand his appeal beyond conservative media viewers, CNN’s Kristen Holmes reported earlier Wednesday.

Trump will enter tonight's town hall with a polling advantage

Former President Donald Trump enters Wednesday’s CNN town hall as both the prohibitive GOP frontrunner for the 2024 nomination and a man just found liable in a civil case for sexually abusing and defaming former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.

While we cannot yet know what effect that verdict will have on the race for the Republican nomination, Trump’s large polling advantage was built with this civil trial in the news and after being indicted earlier this spring in a separate criminal case related to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels. (Trump has denied all wrongdoing.)

The leads Trump has in surveys of Republican voters and in endorsements from elected officials at this stage are some of the strongest for a nonincumbent in the modern presidential primary era.

Trump is polling, on average, north of 50% in national polls of likely GOP primary voters. His nearest potential challenger – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has yet to launch a campaign – is earning a little north of 20% of the Republican primary vote on average. No other potential Republican candidate is in double digits.

There are very few candidates, of either party, in nonincumbent races who were near or north of 50% in the national primary polls this early on. Those included Republicans Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000, and Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016. All of those candidates won their party’s nominations, and none of those races were particularly close.

Interestingly, all the legal controversies involving Trump have not hurt him in the polls. At the beginning of the year, Trump was earning a little more than 40% of the vote, on average, and was only about 10 points ahead of DeSantis. Trump’s lead is now triple that at closer to 30 points, on average.

You can read more about the polls here.

Analysis: Trump's latest court loss may not hurt his 2024 primary bid — but some in GOP raise alarms

The first reaction to Tuesday’s unprecedented verdict finding a former president and current White House candidate liable for sexual abuse offered no reason to suggest that Donald Trump’s position as the frontrunner for the GOP nomination is under any immediate threat.

But some of his GOP critics raised questions about his fitness for office that are certain to be at the center of the next general election if he is the Republican nominee.

The unanimous verdict could deepen his vulnerability among key voting groups, including women – among whom the GOP needs to improve to win back the White House.

The jury found Trump sexually abused former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in a New York Department store in 1996 and that he was liable for battery and defamation, while awarding her $5 million. The unanimous jury verdict was vindication for Carroll and offered a symbolic win for other women who have made assault allegations against the president. Trump, who has denied all wrongdoing, immediately denounced the trial as a witch hunt and said he didn’t even know Carroll. He said later Tuesday evening that he will appeal.

For most of modern US history and for most candidates, Tuesday’s developments would raise potentially insurmountable questions of viability. Many White House hopefuls have exited presidential races for less. And Trump, who’s pleaded not guilty in a separate criminal case involving hush money payments to an adult film star in New York, is facing multiple legal threats. He’s waiting to see whether he will be indicted in separate probes into his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents. But the fact that Trump won’t quit the GOP race – and no one will make him – shows his dominance of the Republican Party, and how he redefined behavioral expectations for public life.

Read the full analysis here.

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Fact-checking Trump’s CNN town hall in New Hampshire
8 takeaways from Trump’s CNN town hall in New Hampshire
Trump again refuses to concede 2020 election while taking questions from New Hampshire GOP primary voters
How to watch CNN’s town hall with former President Donald Trump
Trump’s primary polling advantage is historically large
Trump’s CNN town hall is a sign of a broader and more traditional campaign strategy
Notable legal clouds that continue to hang over Donald Trump in 2023
Trump’s latest court loss may not hurt primary bid, but some Republicans raise alarm about 2024 viability

READ MORE

Fact-checking Trump’s CNN town hall in New Hampshire
8 takeaways from Trump’s CNN town hall in New Hampshire
Trump again refuses to concede 2020 election while taking questions from New Hampshire GOP primary voters
How to watch CNN’s town hall with former President Donald Trump
Trump’s primary polling advantage is historically large
Trump’s CNN town hall is a sign of a broader and more traditional campaign strategy
Notable legal clouds that continue to hang over Donald Trump in 2023
Trump’s latest court loss may not hurt primary bid, but some Republicans raise alarm about 2024 viability