Iowa student slips up, denies CNN planted his question for Hillary Clinton (Video)
An Iowa student's question to Hillary Clinton sparked speculations that CNN planted questions during presidential town hall. Now the student says that the question was his, but the network chose the candidate.
Brett Rosengren, a student described by CNN’s Chris Cuomo as an undecided voter, asked Hillary Clinton, “Which previous president inspired you the most and why?”
However, he didn’t make it through without stumbling along the way...
Rosengren first made a Freudian slip of sorts, stopping up short after calling Clinton “Secretary Sanders.”
He recovered to ask the question, but not before blurting out, “I can see why they gave you this question.”
This immediately got the Twitter commentators going:
"I can see why they gave you this question" aka totally staged @CNN and your dude just proved it. #DemTownHall
— Jarrett Seltzer (@JarrettSeltzer) January 26, 2016
@JarrettSeltzer@CNN : yep ! So phoney ! Hillaryshow 🤑
— Kimothy Bankston (@KimothyBankston) January 26, 2016
@IAStartingLine No, take the tinfoil hats off... They questions are always given to people to read.
— Schwa (@HouseOfSchwa) January 26, 2016
@IAStartingLine no they pick who you ask your question too. Cut it with the conspiracy crap.
— Branden D S Haralson (@BrandenHaralson) January 26, 2016
Even a Fox News contributor took the opportunity to call out CNN.
oops. "I can see why they gave you this question" says a young man asking a question....was he handed this question? is CNN scripting this?
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) January 26, 2016
Rosengren explained afterwards that he hadn’t been provided with the question, but was instructed by CNN to direct it to Clinton rather than the other two candidates.
“It was my own question that I had submitted on Saturday night and directed towards any candidate,” Rosengren told US Uncut. “They chose that candidate to be Clinton.”
This is not the first time the words “Iowa,”“Hillary Clinton,” and “plant” have appeared in the same headline, however.
In 2008, Iowa student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff revealed that she had been given a question to pose to then-Senator Hillary Clinton at a televised town hall event. The student wanted to ask Clinton to compare her energy plan to that of other candidates, but was told to ask another that did not involve discussing the plans of the other candidates.
A statement was issued later by Clinton’s campaign team saying: “On this occasion a member of our staff did discuss a possible question about Senator Clinton’s energy plan at a forum. ... This is not standard policy and will not be repeated again.”
A video of Gallo-Chasanoff being asked about the incident in a CNN interview has resurfaced recently.