Former President Donald Trump's performance on CNN's town hall this week resulted in a win for both him and the network that President Joe Biden, if he were in the same situation, could never match, Rep. Matt Gaetz said on Newsmax Friday.
"President Trump showed a comfortable command of the room," the Florida Republican said on Newsmax's "Eric Bolling: The Balance." "He had an exquisite knowledge of the facts. He brought receipts to counter some of the false narratives that have been put out by a lot of mainstream media and he interacted with people asking questions in a very warm and comforting and almost host-like way."
But Biden, Gaetz told Bolling, "could not do 90 minutes with Kaitlan Collins without needing a nap in the middle and a drool rag at the end of it."
Liberals, meanwhile, are furious over CNN's hosting of Trump in a town hall platform, but Gaetz Friday praised CNN Chairman Chris Licht for the event.
"It's a good thing for CNN that they would platform people that don't necessarily agree with you," he told Bolling. "You host debates on this show. You and I have even debated matters on this show. That's what the viewers and the American people deserve."
Gaetz added that Trump's performance in the town hall shows that he should be taking part in the GOP primary debates.
"If there's anyone advising President Trump to stay out of debates, I think that their argument was undermined considerably by the show he put on," said Gaetz. "Donald Trump is the greatest showman in American politics."
Meanwhile, Gaetz said he agrees with Bolling that Trump agreed to the CNN town hall to take a shot at Fox News, where he "has seen his coverage constrained."
"It also shows a certain fearlessness with President Trump where Ron DeSantis has been, I think, far more measured in only speaking to the friendliest of audiences and hosts," he said.
It would also be at Fox's "own peril" to turn away from Trump, said Gaetz.
"Their viewers are interested in the former president's campaign and the ideas he's putting forward," said Gaetz, adding that network coverage of politicians is not always set in stone.
"My suspicion is people are going to cover the campaigns that are dynamic and active" such as Trump's, he said.
The congressman also commented on this week's ending of Title 42, telling Bolling that if the House Republicans' current H.R. 2 immigration bill was law, "It would absolutely stop the tragedy of biblical proportions that we are seeing to humans at the southern border."
He also warned that when the "hundreds of thousands of people get into the country," they will apply for family reunification visas and start bringing in their families.
"For every one [migrant] you see in these videos, there are another 5, 6, 7, 10 aunts, uncles, cousins, family members that are going to be part of this mass migration of people into our country without permission and without consequence," said Gaetz.
The House Republicans also didn't have to "reinvent the wheel" with their immigration bill, he said.
"We know what worked," said Gaetz. 'It was all the stuff that we did during the Trump administration. What you see now from [Alejandro] Mayorkas and Biden is not incompetence. It is on purpose, and the pain is the point. The pain is for you and me and for America's workers, and they don't care."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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