CNN Chief Regrets Network Covered Trump 24/7

CNN CEO Chris Licht vowed this time around the news outlet is "not going to be a 24/7 Trump news network."

He said he does not want to repeat the 2016 CNN coverage of former President Donald Trump.

"We have fact-checkers ready to go," Licht told the "On with Kara Swisher" podcast. "We will put things in perspective. We will not let everything he does consume the news cycle, right? There are other things that are important."

Licht's predecessor Jeff Zucker gave Trump wall-to-wall coverage of his first bid for the White House, and Zucker later regretted providing Trump with all that coverage, according to Vanity Fair.

CNN smashed its ratings record in Sept. 2015 when it broadcasted the Republican presidential debate, according to the magazine, but a month before the election, Zucker acknowledged airing so many Trump rallies in full was a "mistake."

That flew in the face of Zucker's continued defense of CNN's coverage in the following months after Trump was elected.

"But look, it's not just Zucker, it was everybody," Licht said. "We let every little thing that he did consume everything, and so you ended up talking about him for eight hours a day."

CNN is going to continue to hold Trump talk back amid his 2024 presidential campaign, he vowed.

"We're going to be very clear and take everything on a case-by-case basis about what level of coverage it should be," Licht said. "We are not going to be a 24/7 Trump news network."

Meanwhile, a recent business review of CNN has employees worried widespread job cuts are coming following the formation of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, CNBC reported.

The review, led by Licht, comes as part of a broader effort by Warner Bros. Discovery head David Zaslav to find new ways of saving money at the company, which has roughly 40,000 workers, with about 4,500 working at CNN.

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