Trump vs. CNN
Two presidents with a love of spectacle
He is a favorite target of President Donald Trump’s ire, the leader of a television network that the White House routinely accuses of peddling “fake news,” and a contentious figure in his own right whose showcasing of Trump in the presidential campaign led to howls from the political establishment.
But eating filet mignon in a private dining room atop Central Park, Jeffrey Zucker, president of CNN, did not look like a man perturbed.
“Our folks are just doing their jobs,” Zucker declared at a recent lunch with journalists, who prodded him about the slings and arrows that Trump has gleefully lobbed his way. “They wear those insults as a badge of honor.”
A battle-tested executive, Zucker, 51, has rarely shied from a fight. He has also never faced an antagonist quite like this.
Minutes after Zucker had finished his steak, Trump was on television screens around the country attacking Zucker by name from the East Room of the White House. In an extraordinary news conference, Trump denounced CNN as an organ of “anger and hatred” and accused Zucker directly of “bias.”
Friends turned enemies
In an era of hostility and suspicion toward the news media, perhaps no battle is more pitched than that between Trump and CNN. The president has shouted down the network’s correspondents, posted insults at its anchors in real time on Twitter and turned anti-CNN epithets into a rallying cry, electrifying the crowd Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference by slamming the “Clinton News Network.”
Later, CNN’s White House reporter was one of several journalists barred from attending a briefing with Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, a move that the network called retaliatory and that anchor Jake Tapper, in an on-air monologue, deemed “un-American.”
The old CNN may have shied away from conflict; the new CNN is leaning into it. Once the down-themiddle nerd of the cable news playground, CNN — under the guidance of Zucker, a former sports and morning show producer with a yen for flood-the-zone programming — is now an elbows-out player in national politics, vociferously pledging to hold a truth-averse White House to account.
It’s a quarrel fueled in part by the yearslong, up-and-down relationship between Trump and Zucker, two outspoken television addicts who once enjoyed a rapport. They have known each other since the early 2000s, when Zucker put Trump in prime time as host of the NBC show “The Apprentice,” and both share an obsession with ratings and a love of spectacle.
Corporate intrigue
Once in frequent touch, the men have not spoken to each other since December — “not a good conversation,” by Zucker’s description — and the dispute has bled beyond questions of coverage into the realm of corporate intrigue. Time Warner, CNN’s parent company, is preparing for a takeover by AT&T that requires approval from Trump’s Justice Department.
Television news is a cynical business, and some current and former executives say the battle is win-win. Trump’s lambasting of CNN is red meat for a Republican base angry at the mainstream press. “Saturday Night Live” portrayed the network as a diaper-wearing reporter banished to a cage in the White House press room.
CNN has seen ratings rise as its reporters land big scoops — including major stories about Russia and the Trump campaign — and the network promotes its tough-minded attitude. Tapper’s skeptical interview with White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, for instance, went viral.
Still, Zucker, who declined a oneon-one interview for this article, was concerned enough to commission a study of how Trump’s attacks had affected CNN’s reputation.
And the network chief finds himself in the unusual position of being castigated by Trump loyalists, just months after some Democrats and Republicans attacked him for enabling Trump’s rise. At a forum at Harvard in December, Zucker was jeered for airing Trump rallies unedited and hiring the candidate’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, as a commentator.
Inside CNN’s Manhattan newsroom, journalists say the presidential glare has both rattled and energized them, even as the Trump administration withholds top officials from its airwaves.
Inside the White House, the attitude is that CNN took aim at the president — and missed.
Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, complained bitterly about the network’s coverage during a December roundtable with New York business leaders, including Gary Ginsberg, a top Time Warner executive. Kushner said Trump had been inaccurately painted as a xenophobe by panels stacked with liberals, according to two attendees granted anonymity to recount a private session.
According to the attendees, Kushner said CNN executives had tried to lure Trump onto their network by pointing to their big audience. Kushner scoffed, saying interviews with local news channels would better reach voters in swing states.
‘Not backing down’
People who have spoken to Zucker in recent weeks say he is not cowed by Trump’s attacks, if irked by the level of vitriol from a man with whom he was once close. His friends say he remains intent on producing lively television in his usual, hands-on way.
Back when Zucker ran NBC, Stephen Burke, a top Comcast executive, walked into the 30 Rockefeller Plaza lobby one morning to find him watching a live feed of WNBC, the local New York affiliate. Cellphone to his ear, Zucker was in a heated conversation about whether to break into the “Today” show with local news about a storm.
It was the kind of decision Zucker might have handled when running “Today” and maybe even as president of NBC News. But as head of the corporation? Burke, who succeeded Zucker as NBC’s chief, took note, according to three television executives who recounted the anecdote.
At the lunch with journalists, Zucker shrugged off the Trump team’s attacks. “They have the right to say whatever they want,” he said. “That’s called the First Amendment. We have the right to do whatever we want, as well.”
CNN reporters, he said, “are not being intimidated, they are not backing down.”
After all, there’s a president tuning in.
“He put out a tweet yesterday morning that said CNN was ‘unwatchable,’” Zucker said, a hint of bemusement in his voice. “But the only way he knew that was because he was watching.”