My colleague Jennifer Oliver O’Connell wrote about what former President Donald Trump said about the shooting of Ashli Babbit at the CNN town hall, calling the cop who shot her a “thug.”

Two things were clear from the interview that Trump had with Kaitlan Collins Wednesday night.

First, she was a terrible interviewer. I don’t know who gave her instructions to try to keep running over Trump. Not only was she not successful in shutting Trump down, but she also made herself look very bad by continually interrupting.

The other thing was that Trump had the audience in the palm of his hand. He was in great form for most of the interview and had them cheering on several occasions. Some may have wondered why he went on CNN, a network that he constantly has blasted. But I think one thing that you can say about it — he showed that he was fearless and willing to take on any question from an outlet that has attacked him in the past. Not only did they not succeed in the attack on him, but he largely came off well and made them look petty with Collins’ reactions.

There were many interesting points of the interview but I wanted to point out three parts. The audience’s reaction was something else as they loved what he had to say.

Perhaps one of the most interesting was when Collins claimed that he didn’t respond to Jan. 6 when the rioting was happening — a common Democrat lie. Trump then dropped the receipts on her, showing he’d encouraged people to be peaceful, even the day before.

Donald Trump BROUGHT THE RECEIPTS!!!

CNN is freaking out because Trump is WIPING THE FLOOR with them!! pic.twitter.com/HUV7Bo14uo

— Graham Allen (@GrahamAllen_1) May 11, 2023

Then after the rioting started he tweeted to people to stop and also gave a statement encouraging people to remain peaceful. Trump being Trump, he snuck in a plug for his site Truth Social.

As we’ve reported in the past, even before there was any violence he told the audience at his rally he expected people to act “peacefully and patriotically.”

Play it @January6thCmte.

PEACEFULLY and PATRIOTICALLY. pic.twitter.com/10WFVZ7Vt2

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) July 12, 2022

When asked about Ukraine, he said it would never have happened under him, which I think is quite true.

"If I were President, [the war in Ukraine] would have never happen." – Trump pic.twitter.com/TBVHZ2fi2e

— ForAmerica (@ForAmerica) May 11, 2023

Vladimir Putin saw Joe Biden’s weakness when it came to Afghanistan and Nord Stream 2 and thought he could get away with it.

Trump got massive cheers when he said he wanted to end the war.

Trump just torched Uniparty mouthpiece @kaitlancollins on the War in Ukraine

“I don’t think in terms of winning & losing. I think I’m terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people”

Calls for European nations to take in the brunt of the cost 🔥 pic.twitter.com/gkBCqjXaCO

— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) May 11, 2023

But perhaps the response of the night was when he just came back at Kaitlan Collins and wouldn’t allow her to roll over him during the interview on the question of classified documents. When he called her out for not letting him talk, he called her a “nasty person” and the audience just loved it.

BREAKING: Horrible interview by @kaitlancollins of@CNN. She won't even allow @realDonaldTrump to talk, broke all the ethics of journalism. Trump called her Nasty. WATCH pic.twitter.com/XayjZNeMbb

— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) May 11, 2023

He also pointed out that while the media is fixated on him, they are ignoring the classified documents that Joe Biden had unlawfully collected even before he became president.

It’s hard to believe the attack that Trump is under from all different legal corners by the Democrats, yet he seemed to be fully focused on all the important issues he needed to be on in the interview. He cleaned CNN’s clock.

Meanwhile, CNN — who likely had hoped to trap Trump — managed to make themselves look silly.