Yesterday, a surprise announcement that former President Donald Trump would appear on CNN for the first time in seven years as part of a town hall event in New Hampshire struck many surprise. Keith Olbermann was one of them who was surprised but wasn’t pleasantly receptive to the news.
“Chris Licht’s transformation of CNN into a journalistic whorehouse is complete,” Olbermann said to begin his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast Tuesday. “CNN is now bribing Donald Trump to accept its offer for a town hall…during which CNN says questions will be asked by New Hampshire Republicans and undecided voters and implied that its only involvement will be having the former Tucker Carlson website employee Kaitlan Collins moderate.
“I used that word ‘bribing’ deliberately because this is more than just sacrificing the charged remains of CNN’s credibility to Trump. There is a quid-pro-quo here.”
Olbermann then read reporting from The Guardian that claimed there was an unspoken agreement between CNN and Trump officials that more of his “campaign surrogates” will appear on its programs after accepting the invitation to appear on the network.
He then criticized CNN staffers like Wolf Blitzer, Jim Acosta, Jake Tapper, and Jim Sciutto, by name for failing to stand up to CEO Chris Licht over the decision to air a town hall with the former President.
“Not one of whom quit in protest of this prostituting of their news brand or their personal reputations. Not one of whom even let out an anonymous squeak of regret to a real journalist covering this story. It must now be assumed anyone who works on or for CNN are all lying, because they work for a liar, and they appear on a channel dedicated to lying, which has just sold the few remaining shards of its soul to the greatest liar of our time in Trump. CNN is now Fox News.”
