Anderson Cooper's bashing former President Donald Trump for "disturbing" behavior and remarks during CNN's town hall -- but he's also responding to the waves of people dragging the network for giving Trump a platform.
He addressed the outrage Thursday night as tempers continue flaring over Wednesday's town hall by calling out Trump's "lie after lie after lie," and inappropriate name-calling toward moderator, Kaitlan Collins, amongst other shocking moments.
Cooper acknowledged the anger toward CNN, saying people have every right to never tune in to the network again -- but then defended CNN by pointing out a cold, hard truth: Whether you like it or not, DT is the Republican frontrunner for president, and shutting out someone because you don't share their beliefs just isn't a healthy reality.
As you know, many called for CNN to boot Trump from their network ahead of Wednesday night's town hall -- especially after he was found liable this week in his battery and defamation trial with E. Jean Carroll.
As for why CNN viewers, or Trump haters, shouldn't look away -- Anderson says the roaring applause during some of Trump's bombastic comments should strike fear in people, as he says it was a sampling of roughly half the nation.
For what it's worth, the town hall drew more than 3 million pairs of eyeballs -- way higher than CNN's typical viewership around the same time, so the country was definitely watching it all go down. For better or worse.