In the Room at Trump vs. CNN

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Happy Thursday, and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest.

Tonight, in the aftermath of Trump’s CNN town hall, here’s my conversation with Matthew Bartlett, a former Trump administration appointee at the State Department who stepped down after January 6, and who was in the audience last night in New Hampshire. For those of us who watched it at home, it certainly seemed like the room was brimming with Trump enthusiasm. But in the studio theater, Bartlett says the scene was much more complicated.

Herewith, a first-hand account of the evening, analysis of the aftermath, some notes on Kaitlan Collins’s performance—and what it all portends for the future of the country.

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TARA PALMERI

Matthew Bartlett, the man with the best hair in G.O.P. political consulting, was born and raised in New Hampshire. He’s been involved in politics since he worked for Bono’s One campaign, back in 2008, before steadily undergoing Republican conversion therapy: he started by working for Jon Huntsman’s presidential, in 2012, and then Kelly Ayotte’s bid for a U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire, in 2016, when she lost by 1,000 votes and...

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