After moderating a widely publicized town hall with former President Trump, Kaitlan Collins heads to prime time at CNN.

The “CNN This Morning” co-host and former White House correspondent takes over the hour from 9 p.m. Eastern Time

the cable news network CNN

on a full-time basis starting this fall.

But S

he will be seen regularly in the period starting next month prior to the programs

debut

said a note

That

CNN Chairman Chris Licht dispatched

Wednesday

to the staff

on Wednesday

.

The network announced the move from parent company Warner Bros.

over there

Discovery advertiser presentation in New York.

collins’

S

program includes interviews with

newsmakers

and panel discussions on two to three topics per evening. Licht has internally stressed that the new entry will not be an opinion show,

distinguishing from distinguishing from it

the game on MSNBC and Fox News.

Collins, 31, left the White House to co-host “CNN This Morning” with Poppy Harlow and Don Lemon in December.

The morning show was on

the first major programming initiative under light.

SheCollins

is now the second co-host to leave the show.

like it

Citroen was fired

for unspecified reasons on April 24. His resignation came two months after he made offensive comments on the program about when a woman is past her prime while speaking about the 51-year-old Republican former governor of South Carolina. Nikki Haley. , who is running for the party’s presidential nomination for the 2024 election

“CNN This Morning” is often the least watched of the three major cable news channels. Harlow will be joined by substitutes until a permanent replacement

for Collins right?

is called.

Collins’ profile got a big boost on May 10 when she moderated a town hall with Trump,

marking

his first live appearance on CNN since the 2016 presidential campaign. The event at St. Anselm’s College in New Hampshire was watched by 3.3 million people.

according to Nielsen data, making it a ratings success for CNN

.

But the program received harsh criticism as the audience of

what was billed as

Republican and Independent voters became a cheering squad for Trump,

including when even when

he decried E. Jean Carroll, the woman who recently received $5 million after a jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting her in 1994.

Collins tried to call out Trump when he repeated numerous false claims that his 2020 election loss was rigged,

amid

other

false false

explanations. But critics said CNN should have known better than to give Trump, now a candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination, a forum where it would be impossible to filter out misinformation in real time.

Collins escaped much of the scrutiny when her colleagues on the network and in the Washington journalist community thought she was fighting to push Trump back. At one point, Trump called her “a mean person.”

Licht also praised Collins’ performance, although the decision to give her a primetime hour was made before city hall

broadcast

according to people who are familiar with the discussions but are not authorized to discuss them publicly.

CNN has seen no residual benefit from the ratings

made by of

the Town Hall. On Friday night the viewing level of the network

S

tumbled down

that of

Newsmax, the conservative outlet that gets its best ratings

air runs

Trump meets.

Light said

That

part of his mission at CNN is to move the network to the political center and as

bee

impartial supplier of news.

Warner Bros. Discovery

Director David Zaslav

has argued that believed

the network has also moved

far deep

in anti-Trump advocacy among

are

previous boss Jeff Zucker.

Licht, who joined CNN in April 2022, has tried to make the network more friendly to Republican politicians, but the approach hasn’t attracted new viewers.

Fox News, the most watched cable news network,

recently seen

the ratings take a hit after that

since

the April 24 firing of its biggest prime-time star, Tucker Carlson. There is no evidence in Nielsen’s data showing that CNN picked up any of those defectors, some of whom went to Newsmax.

Collins is considered an outright shooter who does not report with political leanings, although the Alabama native began her journalism career at the Daily Caller, a conservative news channel.

website that Carlson

Founded

by fired Fox News star Tucker Carlson

. (Carlson gave up his interest in the site in 2020.)

CNN hired

Collins

was hired by CNN

in 2017 and assigned

here

to cover the Trump White House. she

Than

spent two years covering President Biden’s administration.

While Collins was considered one of the few White House reporters Trump

could be

tolerate, her tenacious style occasionally irritated his government. She was once barred from covering an event after yelling several awkward questions at Trump at an Oval Office meeting.

Collins becomes the youngest prime-time host in cable news, where the median audience age is over 64.