CNN host Anderson Cooper faced backlash on social media Wednesday night following his sharp questioning of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris during a town hall with undecided voters in Pennsylvania, with his confrontational approach leaving some viewers scratching their heads.
During the event in Delaware County, Cooper repeatedly pressed Harris on the Biden administration’s weak handling of illegal immigration and her shifting stance on fracking, questioning why she hadn’t accomplished in four years what she was now pledging to do as president.
The hardline questions drew swift criticism from viewers who accused Cooper of applying a double standard that worked in Donald Trump’s favor.
Numerous online voices blasted Cooper for repeatedly interrupting Vice President Harris and holding her to a higher standard than Trump, whose vague “concepts of a plan” on health care and other key issues have faced little to no scrutiny from the network.
Critics argued that while Harris faced overwhelming dissection by the media, Trump was getting a free pass by choosing to skip the event altogether.
“CNN brought every GOP candidate on for a #CNNTownHall and let them lie up and down. Fact-checked nothing and stood by while they made things up the whole time,” wrote one X user. “Tonight @andersoncooper is picking apart every single tiny little thing Kamala says. CNN is trash and so is Anderson.”
Another user echoed the sentiment, stating, “I wish @andersoncooper would concentrate on questions that need to be answered and not on gotcha questions. The audience has much better questions than Anderson.”
At times, it seemed as if Cooper was trying to put Harris on the spot, especially when it came to her fluctuating positions on key issues such as the border. Harris even had to cut Anderson off as he talked over her response to a question from the audience about immigration.
“Our country deserves to have a president of the United States who is not afraid of good ideas and does not stand on pride,” Harris said. “If a perspective needs to be informed by different points of view to build consensus and to have a common sense approach. I’m never going to shy away from good ideas, and I’m not gonna feel the need to have pride associated with a position that I’ve taken when the important thing is to build consensus to fix problems.
“I believe in fixing problems. I love fixing problems. And so I pledge to you to be a president who not only works for all Americans but works on getting stuff done, and that means compromise. And it doesn’t mean compromising your values or your principles, but it does mean working to get stuff done.”
Liberals applauded Harris for the response, with many praising it as both reasonable and reflective of her authenticity while showing her as a relatable figure with real sensibilities.
“Kamala Harris cuts off Anderson Cooper to absolutely NAIL her answer to this voter’s concern about her shifting positions,” said another viewer.
Cooper also brought up “record border crossings” in 2022 and 2023, pointing out that it wasn’t until June 2024 that President Joe Biden issued an executive order limiting the number of asylum seekers allowed at the U.S.-Mexico border. He then asked Harris why the administration didn’t implement such measures sooner.
“Because we were working with Congress and hoping that actually, we could have a long-term fix to the problem instead of a short-term fix,” Harris replied.
The town hall took place on the same day that Donald Trump faced new allegations on two fronts—one involving his presidency and another tied to his private life from three decades ago when he was close friends with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who killed himself in 2019 while facing charges for sex trafficking underage girls.
Just two hours before Harris took the stage for the town hall, The Guardian published a piece in which a former model named Stacey Williams accused Trump of groping her and inappropriately touching her at Trump Tower in 1993. Williams, who claims she met Trump through Epstein, described the incident as part of a “twisted game” between the two men.
Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary for Donald Trump’s campaign, provided a statement denying the allegations, which said in part: “These accusations, made by a former activist for Barack Obama and announced on a Harris campaign call two weeks before the election, are unequivocally false. It’s obvious this fake story was contrived by the Harris campaign.”
Another bombshell dropped the day before when Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, revealed that Trump had privately expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler, as well as the Nazi generals for their loyalty to him, even though they had failed in many attempts to assassinate the Führer.
During an exclusive interview with the New York Times, Kelly stated that Trump fit the definition of a fascist, claiming he would govern like a dictator if given the chance and lacked any understanding of the Constitution or the concept of the rule of law.
“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” Kelly said, according to the Times.
“So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America,” Kelly said, adding: “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”
The former president’s campaign has categorically denied these allegations. In response, Trump fired back on Truth Social, saying Kelly had “beclowned” himself and calling Harris “a threat to democracy.”
Meanwhile, the hashtag “October surprise” was trending on X moments before the town hall, referring to Trump’s latest controversies less than two weeks before the election.
Harris seized the moment when Cooper asked if she believed Donald Trump is a fascist.
“Yes, I do,” she responded. “Yes, I do. And I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted,” she said, referring to Kelly.
“He’s going to sit there, unstable, unhinged, plotting his revenge, plotting his retribution, creating an enemies list,” Harris told the crowd, striking a contrast with her opponent by vowing to keep a “to-do list” for the American people if she is elected president.
Earlier in the day, Harris gave a speech warning that Trump would pursue “unchecked power” if he returned to the Oval Office. Meanwhile, Trump spoke at a faith-based event and an evening rally in Georgia after refusing to participate in the town hall.
Harris continued to hammer Trump for not debating her a second time and for repeatedly ducking opportunities to connect with voters on the national stage.
“Donald Trump should be here tonight to talk with you and answer your questions,” Harris told the audience. “He’s not. He refused to come.”
Many viewers saw the event less as a town hall and more as a debate between the vice president and Cooper, whose persistent questioning overshadowed the intended format.
“@andersoncooper It’s not your job to interrupt and debate VP Harris. It’s a town hall. Let her speak. Stop being so stupidly annoying,” wrote another viewer.
At one point, Cooper challenged Harris to explain why she backed a bipartisan immigration deal that allocated $650 million for a border wall, despite her earlier comments in which she criticized Trump’s wall more than 50 times, suggesting” she had flip-flopped on Trump’s “useless medieval vanity project.”
Harris gave an unflappable response, blaming Trump for not following through on his 2016 campaign promise to build the wall and have it financed by Mexico.
“So let’s talk about Donald Trump and that border wall,” she said. “Remember Donald Trump said Mexico would pay for it? Come on, they didn’t. How much of that wall did he build? I think the last number I saw is about 2 percent. And then when it came time for him to do a photo op, you know where he did it? In the part of the wall that President Obama built.”
According to the fact-checking site PolitiFact, the Trump administration constructed 52 miles of new primary border wall and 406 miles of secondary barriers to bolster existing defenses. In August, Trump was photographed in front of a section of the border wall in Montezuma Pass, Arizona, which had been built during the Obama administration, as reported by The Washington Post.
Harris reiterated that Trump had influenced House Republicans to block a bipartisan border bill earlier this year, suggesting he did so to keep the issue alive for political gain against Democrats.
Cooper questioned Harris about her commitment to reintroducing the same bill if she wins in November, given her past opposition to the border wall. In response, the Democratic nominee stated, “I’m not afraid of good ideas where they occur.”
The CNN host then asked, “So you don’t think it’s stupid anymore?”
But at this point, Harris turned the focus back to Trump, saying, “I think what he did and how he did it did not make much sense because he actually didn’t do much of anything.”
Some viewers called Cooper out for this particular line of questioning, saying the CNN host “knows damn well the wall in the border bill was a bi-partisan compromise.”
One user summed it up, saying, “Anderson Cooper has NEVER talked to Trump with this tone and continues to press for an answer HE wants. NEVER!!”
