5 Biggest Revelations From The Atlantic’s Bombshell Profile of Chris Licht’s CNN

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The Atlantic‘s Tim Alberta dropped a sprawling 15,000-word profile of Chris Licht and his tumultuous first year as CEO of CNN. The piece, for which Alberta scored incredible access to Licht, chronicled a troubling year for the cable news network which has been saddled with ratings woes and internal turmoil. Alberta’s headline describes the state of affairs as a “meltdown.”

The journalist spoke with more than 100 CNN staffers to examine how Licht’s ambitious goal to reinvent the network broke down. The Atlantic report, according to ex-CNN host Brian Stelter, landed with a thud inside the network: “the consensus, among people who knew [Alberta’s] piece was coming, is that it’s much ‘worse’ than they expected,” he tweeted. “Licht confided in Alberta the way a client confides in a therapist. Some CNN staffers are shocked.”

Below are five key episodes from the new reporting.

Town hall gone wrong

When Alberta first began shadowing Licht, the new boss was brash and self-assured, believing he understood how to cover the wildly unpredictable Trump.

“How are we gonna cover Trump? That’s not something I stay up at night thinking about,” Licht told Alberta. “It’s very simple.”

“The media has absolutely, I believe, learned its lesson,” Licht said.

Sensing my surprise, he grinned.

“I really do,” Licht said. “I think they know that he’s playing them—at least, the people in my organization. We’ve had discussions about this. We know that we’re getting played, so we’re gonna resist it.”

Months later, during the contentious town hall, which featured an overwhelmingly pro-Trump audience, the former president insulted moderator Kaitlan Collins and joked about stomping on the CNN logo:

“She’s not very nice,” Trump told the studio audience, pointing toward Collins while she stood just offstage during the first commercial break.

…

At one point, when she and Trump assumed their marks onstage after another commercial break, Collins politely reminded him not to step past the giant red CNN logo in front of them. Trump responded by gesturing as though he might stomp on it. The crowd roared in approval.

No regrets

Licht told Alberta he had few regrets from the town hall, which sparked a furor internally and even a public rebuke from CNN veteran Christiane Amanpour.

I asked Licht whether there was anything he regretted about the event. The “extra Trumpy” makeup of the crowd? (No, Licht said, because it was representative of the Republican base.) Devoting the first question to his election lies? (No, Licht said, because nothing else, not even the E. Jean Carroll verdict, was as newsworthy as Trump’s assault on the ballot box.) Allowing the audience to cheer at will? (No, Licht said, because instructing them to hold their applause, as debate moderators regularly do, would have altered the reality of the event.) The lone point he ceded was that the crowd should have been introduced to viewers at home—with a show of hands, perhaps, to demonstrate how many had voted for Trump previously, or were planning to support him in 2024.

He gave no ground on anything else—not even the presence of Representative Donalds on the postgame show. Licht told me it probably didn’t make sense to seat a congressman on the pundits’ panel, but said he otherwise had no regrets, even after I pointed out that Donalds was an election denier who used his place on that panel to question the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.

A night at Cafe Milano

In his first year, Licht hasn’t proven to be the same schmoozer of CNN talent as his predecessor, Jeff Zucker. Alberta wrote, “The comparisons with Zucker were inevitable, and Licht hated them. Whereas the old boss was gregarious and warm, giving nicknames to employees and remembering their kids’ birthdays, Licht came across as taciturn, seemingly going out of his way to avoid human relationships.”

One story in particular summed up the internal griping about Licht’s approach to the rank and file:

At a holiday dinner for his D.C.-based talent, Licht went around the private room at Café Milano, shook hands and spoke briefly with each of the journalists, then sat down and spent much of the dinner looking at his phone. Not only did he say nothing to address the group—as they all expected he would—but Licht barely interacted with the people seated near him. It became so awkward that guests began texting one another, wondering if there was some crisis unfolding with an international bureau. When a pair of them caught a glimpse of Licht’s phone, they could see that he was reading a critical story about him in Puck.

Licht vs Lemon

Alberta dives deep into the contentious relationship between Licht and Don Lemon, the CNN star he removed from prime time to build an ambitious new morning show around him. On CNN This Morning, Licht paired Lemon with Kaitlin Collins and Poppy Harlow. But his patience with Lemon grew thin during rehearsals for the new show — and those frustrations are extensively chronicled in the Atlantic piece.

Licht and Lemon, it becomes clear, disagreed on how the network covered the Trump administration and how it should approach a morning show.

Before Licht eventually fired Lemon, in part because of his women in their “prime” comment, a brewing battle between the two camps simmered under the surface:

Then, a staffer close to Licht told me, Lemon began telling allies that Al Sharpton, Ben Crump, and other Black leaders would rally to his defense if he were fired, making his dismissal a referendum on CNN’s whiteness. (A spokesperson for Lemon denied this and accused Licht’s team of spreading rumors about him to distract from Licht’s failures at CNN.)

Licht’s greatest confidant? His Maddow-loving trainer

Alberta revealed that Licht has slimmed down over the past three years thanks to regular workouts with trainer to New York’s elite, former boxer Joe Maysonet.

Alberta tagged along to a training session and recounted an incredible scene: “Licht jumped off the machine. At Maysonet’s instruction, he squatted down to grab a long metal pole lying flat on the ground. ‘Zucker couldn’t do this shit,’ Licht said through clenched teeth, hoisting the pole with a grunt.”

Alberta also reported that the workouts became “indispensable” to Licht:

Licht called Maysonet his “therapist” and “coach” and “one-man focus group.” He was among the few people Licht trusted. This gym was Licht’s sanctuary; nothing and no one was allowed to disrupt him here. Except Zaslav. To the annoyance of his trainer, Licht told me, Zaslav liked to call him at 6:30 a.m. Sometimes those calls came when Zaslav was on the West Coast, meaning it was 3:30 a.m. for him. When Licht told me this, he twisted his face into a pained expression. Assuming a side-plank position, Licht told me that Maysonet “is super fucking liberal” and not sold on his plans for CNN. Maysonet pressed his foot into Licht’s shoulder. “Rachel Maddow, now that’s my chick,” he said.

Read The Atlantic article here.