CNN President Jeff Zucker issued a stern warning for President Donald Trump if he continues to mock the network. At his last press conference as President-elect, Trump referred to CNN as “Fake News”.
Zucker fired back, threatening the President, possibly with continued biased coverage in its global markets. In an interview in New York Magazine, he spoke about his network’s recent missteps and the future of his network’s coverage of the President.
“I think our credibility is higher than ever, and our viewership is higher than ever, and our reporting is as strong as ever. One of the things I think this administration hasn’t figured out yet is that there’s only one television network that is seen in Beijing, Moscow, Seoul, Tokyo, Pyongyang, Baghdad, Tehran and Damascus — and that’s CNN,” Zucker said. “The perception of Donald Trump in capitals around the world is shaped, in many ways, by CNN. Continuing to have an adversarial relationship with that network is a mistake.”
Zucker also criticized Trump’s use of Twitter in the interview.
“If he’s relying on Twitter to shape his own perception in the capitals of the world then I think he’s making a big mistake,” he added.
Trump’s stance on CNN is not much different than Barack Obama’s treatment of Fox News during his presidency.
In 2014, after being interviewed on Fox’s O’Reilly Factor, Obama complained about host Bill O’Reilly’s statements on Benghazi.
For almost two years, the White House avoided the network, not appearing again until April of 2016 with host Chris Wallace.