A Tale of Two Ceasefires: MS NOW Declares Trump ‘Caved’ and CNN Says He’s ‘Backing Down’ — While Fox News Insists ‘Iran Blinked’

The three major cable news networks crowned different winners, Tuesday night, following President Donald Trump’s announcement that he plans to “suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks.”

Over on CNN, Erin Burnett kicked off OutFront by saying the president was “standing down.”

“Literally at the 11th hour, Trump backing down after threatening that a, quote, ‘whole civilization will die tonight never to be brought back again,'” Burnett said. “Horrific and unacceptable words — which, just moments ago, at the 11th hour before his deadline, Trump now has essentially rescinded.”

MS NOW’s takeaway from the breaking was even more blunt. In the opening moments of The Weeknight, Symone-Sanders Townsend declared that Trump “caved.”

“Donald Trump just caved — backing down from his fake deadline averting for now what the president described this morning as an attack on Iran that would lead to the death of a, quote, ‘whole civilization,'” Sanders-Townsend said. “Moments ago, the president posted, quote, ‘I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. The suspension is contingent on Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz.’ … Trump says he backed down based on talks with Pakistan, which is serving as an intermediary.”

But Fox News painted a very different picture of the same development. Laura Ingraham noted that she had just gotten off the phone with the president moments before going on the air, and came away from that call believing that it was Iran which “blinked.”

“He was extremely serious in my conversation with him just now,” Ingraham said. “And he was also cautiously, but seriously optimistic. He told me that the negotiations are, and were, incredibly complex. He does not want them jeopardized. There still needs to be an announced agreement, and of course we all know in this part of the world anything can happen, but it sure looks like Iran blinked.”

Three networks, three hot takes right out of the gate. Mediaite will continue to monitor coverage throughout the evening — as the primetime cable news hosts weigh in on the breaking developments.

Watch above, via CNN, MS NOW and Fox News.

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