Parkland shooting survivor claims CNN tried to censor his town hall question
A teenaged survivor of last week's school shooting sat out CNN's gun control town hall Wednesday night, claiming the network tried to feed him lines.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School junior Colton Haab told Miami's ABC affiliate WPLG-TV that he did not go to the event — which was specifically centered around the attack at his Parkland, Florida, school — because CNN tried to control what he would say. "CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions, and it ended up being all scripted," Haab said.
Haab said his rejected question focused on the possibility of hiring veterans as armed security guards at high schools, an idea that President Trump supports. But CNN pushed back on Haab's claim of censorship, saying that Haab and his father elected beforehand not to participate in the town hall and told the network as much. A spokesperson for CNN also told The Hill: "CNN did not provide or script questions for anyone in last night's town hall, nor have we ever."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Watch WPLG-TV's interview with Haab (starting at 1:01) below. Kelly O'Meara Morales
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.
-
Argentina’s Milei buoyed by regional election winsSpeed Read Argentine President Javier Milei is an ally of President Trump, receiving billions of dollars in backing from his administration
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
Political cartoons for October 27Cartoons Monday's political cartoons include improving national monuments, the NBA gambling scandal, and the AI energy vampire
-
Warner Bros. explores sale amid Paramount bidsSpeed Read The media giant, home to HBO and DC Studios, has received interest from multiple buying parties
-
Gold tops $4K per ounce, signaling financial uneaseSpeed Read Investors are worried about President Donald Trump’s trade war
-
Electronic Arts to go private in record $55B dealspeed read The video game giant is behind ‘The Sims’ and ‘Madden NFL’
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fineSpeed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
