According to several Republicans who formerly worked for CNN, the network’s disdain for President Donald Trump and pro-Trump conservatives in general is rooted in more than just standard media bias. It’s rooted rather in an unrelenting, possibly deranged hatred for the man.
“CNN is the ‘hate Trump’ network,” former CNN senior economic analyst Stephen Moore bluntly said in a phone interview this week with Mediaite.
“They just trash Trump every single hour of every single day. All they’ve talked about for two years is the Mueller report and how bad does it make them look now that it proved nothing.”
Former Trump campaign deputy communications director Bryan Lanza, who joined CNN as a political commentator in 2017 but then left the position a year later, concurred with Moore.
“If you hate Trump, you tune to CNN to validate your hatred,” he said. “Not sure it’s a winning formula — and I’m validated by their last-place performance against other outlets.”
He wasn’t wrong about the network’s ratings. CNN’s drastic decline in ratings have spurred several rounds of layoffs. And this week the network reportedly hit a record low in the 25-to-54 demo.
Wow! CNN Ratings are WAY DOWN, record lows. People are getting tired of so many Fake Stories and Anti-Trump lies. Chris Cuomo was rewarded for lowest morning ratings with a prime time spot – which is failing badly and not helping the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2019
Buck Sexton, a former CIA intelligence officer who later worked as a CNN contributor from 2014 til at least 2018, added that CNN now openly despises pro-Trump Republicans.
“CNN used to pretend it accepted right-wing voices for balance, but now it openly despises conservatives who are pro-Trump,” he said to Mediaite.
“Today the entire enterprise clings to a fundamental dishonesty: that it has no political agenda. Taking down Trump is obviously the agenda. And in this regard, some of CNN’s ‘hard news’ anchors are the biggest journalistic frauds of all.”
Even some Democrats agree with this assessment. Earlier this year Palm Beach County Democrat and high-powered political powerbroker Andre Fladell blasted the network for constantly delivering clear-cut political commentary disguised as “journalism.”
“What’s hurting the country the most, in my opinion, is the dysfunctional and disgusting reporting of a cable channel called CNN,” he said at a local political meeting in February.
“[W]hen CNN pretends that Jake Tapper, Wolf Blitzer and John Berman are news programs and journalists, and they give you the same garbage as every other commentator, then I have a question that the country’s being misrepresented and the news of the world is being misrepresented.”
He added that all he wants is for CNN to start being honest and stop polarizing the nation:
I resent specifically the polarization being created by a make-believe news, a misrepresentation of what news actually is. So I’m very disappointed about CNN about the way they conduct themselves.”
His full rant can be heard below:
One of the problems with CNN, Moore noted in his interview with Mediaite, is that it seems to only care for anti-Trump Republicans: “Who are the Republicans [at CNN]?” Moore asked rhetorically . “John Kasich? He hates Trump!”
To be fair, the network does boast at least one pro-Trump voice — that of former Trump campaign operative Steve Cortes, who’s made a name for himself by being one of the few voices of reason at the network. There used to be more voices of reason, but they’re all gone.
“Most of us got squeezed out involuntarily,” former Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston said to Mediaite, describing his sudden departure from CNN earlier this year.
“I was there for 2 years and was certainly willing to continue. It was clear to me in the end that the Republicans they prefer are anti-Trump Republicans.”
He’s not the only one who’s been “squeezed out involuntarily.”
“The Turner news giant fired Trump backer Jeffrey Lord over a tweet joking about Nazis and removed Ed Martin following comments he made on his radio talk show that fellow CNN panelists he appeared with were ‘black racists,'” Media notes.
“Earlier this year onetime lieutenant governor of South Carolina Andre Bauer did not have his contributor contract renewed. Paris Dennard resigned from the network after the Washington Post uncovered he was fired from a previous job for alleged ‘masturbatory gestures.'”
Regarding Ed Martin’s accusation that some CNN contributors are “black racists,” it should be kept in mind that last year several of the network’s black contributors described pro-Trump rapper Kanye West as a “token negro” who can’t read. They were never held accountable for their words.
Of course, CNN disagrees with these complaints from its former contributors.
“When asked whether the news outlet felt their contributors remain well-balanced in the wake of yet another conservative departure, a spokesperson for CNN told Mediaite that they are always looking to add new perspectives from across the political spectrum,” Mediaite reported.
“They pointed out that several liberal contributors like Symone Sanders, Nina Turner, and Robby Mook have also recently departed to join the 2020 campaign trail. The spokesperson also highlighted that they still have more than a handful of conservative contributors, citing Rick Santorum, Scott Jennings, David Urban, Steve Cortes, Mia Love, and John Kasich on contract.”
Sexton doesn’t seem convinced:
People ask me “how could you ever have worked at CNN?” and I tell them, honestly, that CNN has always been Left of center, but it used to have on real conservatives and, while not friendly to them, was at least interested in a serious exchange of ideas
But Trump broke CNN.
— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) March 3, 2019
I honestly wish CNN would switch it up, reassess what it does now and go back to its roots-
Now It’s prime time line up is all opinion hosts, from Tapper to Lemon, who present this facade of “neutral journo” that no intelligent person can believe is real
Why the dishonesty?
— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) March 3, 2019
Yes, Tapper asks a Democrat an actual question from time to time. This isn’t something to celebrate, folks. And it doesn’t mean he’s a neutral party. He’s a super smug lib 90% of the time.
Does anyone at CNN want to debate me on whether Lemon, Cuomo, etc are neutral?
Please
— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) March 3, 2019
And as for CNN’s current conservative contributors- there is not a single high profile, ready-to-fight for Trump, MAGA supporter among them. When 90% of the GOP supports the President, this isn’t an oversight, it’s a propaganda maneuver
— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) March 3, 2019
When asked by Mediaite whether he would accept if CNN ever offered him a job again, he replied, “Would I go back? Sure … if CNN stopped being crazy.”
He may have a long time to wait.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer for BizPac Review with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University.
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