During a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Wednesday evening, former President Donald Trump took out a piece of paper and fact-checked CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins in real time.

Collins accused Trump of encouraging his supporters to “attack” the Capitol on January 6 before asserting that Trump did not encourage his supporters to return home until three hours after the violence.

“When they went to the Capitol and they were breaking into the Capitol, smashing windows, injuring police officers; why did it take you three hours to tell them to go home?” Collins asked. “I don’t believe it did…Oh let me pull it out, I have to pull it out,” Trump said while reaching into his pocket and pulling out a piece of paper, which drew loud cheers from the crowd.

“So if you look at, on January 5 the day before, I said ‘please support our Capitol Police and law enforcement, they truly are on the side of our country. Stay peaceful, stay peaceful,” Trump said.

Collins twice tried to intervene as the leading GOP candidate read off a series of tweets. “If you look January 6, this is before 2:30: ‘I am asking everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful… this is right after, as it was happening,” Trump said. “But what happened is they took it down, I don’t know… I think they took it down because it was so good they didn’t like it being up there,” Trump went on to say, causing laughter after Collins’ expense from the crowd.

Former President Trump pulls out screenshots of his tweets on January 5th and 6th asking for protestors to remain peaceful. pic.twitter.com/fRxnF6QICZ

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 11, 2023

Collins refuted the president’s claims but stood by his old tweets, which he had printed out and displayed to the entire CNN audience.

Trump indicated on Truth Social on Monday morning that there could be some conflict at the event.

More on this story via The Republic Brief:

In fact, he predicted that it was likely to become a “disaster for all.” CONTINUE READING…