CNN’s approach to covering the historic federal indictment Tuesday of former President Trump appeared to show the network leaning back into the earlier Jeff Zucker era not long after the firing of CEO Chris Licht.
Licht said he wanted to dial back the more partisan approach that defined his predecessor Zucker, but he faced internal dissension throughout his tenure, which came to a head when he offered former President Trump a chance to appear in a CNN town hall last month. Licht was fired last week after a little more than a year on the job, having lost the faith of both the newsroom and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav.
Licht was publicly criticized by reporters such as Christiane Amanpour for airing the Trump town hall, while Anderson Cooper told viewers he understood if they decided to ditch CNN forever for airing it.
Since Licht was shown the door last week, the network has reminded viewers of the Zucker-era programming that appealed to anti-Trump liberals.
Jake Tapper, who reportedly complained about Licht to corporate overlords, told CNN audiences on Tuesday night that it would be “dangerous” to carry a Trump speech live.
“We’re not carrying his remarks live because, frankly, he says a lot of things that are not true and sometimes potentially dangerous,” Tapper told viewers.
Earlier in the day, Tapper rebuked CNN producers for showing Trump with supporters at a Miami restaurant.
CNN, MSNBC REFUSE TO AIR ‘POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS’ TRUMP SPEECH TO SUPPORTERS
“The folks in the control room, I don’t need to see any more of that,” Tapper said. “He’s trying to turn this into a spectacle, a campaign ad. That’s enough of that.”
In his media newsletter “Reliable Sources,” CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy took a shot at his former boss as he gloated about CNN not airing the speech. Darcy is often sharply critical of right-wing media and Republicans.
“The move to not air Trump’s remarks live notably represented a departure from how the network handled Trump’s post-New York arraignment speech. In that case, under former boss Chris Licht, CNN aired most of Trump’s remarks,” Darcy wrote in CNN’s media newsletter.
Darcy’s crusade against Licht picked up steam following the network’s now-infamous Trump town hall. “It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening,” Darcy wrote.
JAKE TAPPER SCOLDS CNN PRODUCERS FOR SHOWING TRUMP WITH MIAMI SUPPORTERS” ‘THAT IS ENOUGH OF THAT’
Darcy was then summoned for a meeting with Licht and other top CNN executives, who reprimanded him for “emotional” coverage.
CNN is being run by a trio of Zucker-era holdovers on an interim basis, all of whom rose to prominence at the company during the Trump administration when resistance-style coverage catering to a left-leaning audience was embraced by leadership.
During Trump’s fiery speech to supporters Tuesday night that Tapper refused to air, the former president cast his “sham” federal indictment as “election interference” by the Biden administration, and “the most heinous abuse of power in the history of our country.” He faces potentially spending the rest of his life in prison.
Trump also blasted Special Counsel Jack Smith as a “deranged lunatic,” and accused President Biden of having “his top political opponent arrested and charged.” He said he had undergone “political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation.”
CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fox News’ Kristine Parks and Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
