Glenn Beck Calls CNN Town Hall "Grotesque'

On Sunday’s Reliable Sources, host Bryal Stelter found himself on the receiving end of a harangue, when guest and sydnicated radio host TheBlaze founder Glenn Beck criticized CNN for using a town hall format Wednesday to address the Parkland, Florida high school shooting massacre.

“This is something you’re not going to want to hear,” Beck warned Stelter before saying that inviting an audience of thousands of “grieving and angry” students to the discussion “did nothing, you made things worse.” Adding a crowd, Beck said, “became the Christians and the lions. It was despicable and grotesque.”

“You would have told the students to shush?,” Stelter responded. “You would have told them to shut up?”

“No,” Beck said. “I would have said this is too raw right now to have a stadium full of people.

CNN’s town hall host Jake Tapper addressed a similar criticism Friday on Twitter, when conservative commentator Bethany S. Mandel asked whether a nationally televised town hall was “the best place for (the students) to work through that trauma.”

Responded Tapper, “They asked us to facilitate a town hall where they could ask questions of lawmakers. You obviously feel we should have said no. I disagree. You obviously feel I should have reprimanded a mass of grieving and upset people on their behavior; I disagree.”

Here’s Beck’s appearance on Stelter’s show. His comments about the town hall come at about the 6:09 time mark...