Ex-CNN boss rips media 'hyperbole' on Trump: 'End of democracy' claims will lead to 'credibility' crisis

Former CNN host Chris Licht took a swipe at the “hyperbole” in the media that led to last week's historic victory for President-elect Donald Trump.

Speaking at the Yahoo Finance Invest conference on Tuesday, Licht was asked how the media can regain credibility as the country embraces a second Trump administration.

His advice to his fellow journalists: “Stay away from pitches.”

“To completely paraphrase Chris Rock, if a man has killed eight people, you can say he has killed nine,” Licht said. “[Trump’s] we will do enough things that really need to be investigated and alarm bells are ringing. You can say, 'Well, this means this, and that means that will happen.' Let's say you did this, and then we'll show each other what that means. Not, 'Well this will mean this' because a lot of times the media gets into trouble when they predict things. ”

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Licht, who was fired as chairman and CEO of CNN in June 2023 after more than a year on the job, pointed to the “hyperbole” he had seen as an observer of the media about what a second Trump presidency would bring.

“'The end of democracy.' Well, if it's not, if four years from now it's not there, we have a credibility problem,” Licht said. “So instead, 'You nominated this person, this is the person's record,' not 'that means you're going to do this,' right?”

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“There will be enough discussion. There will be enough things that will be controversial. But he and his people know exactly what they are doing when they try to put together what one of my colleagues called porn. He is 11 years old, and everything is weird, so he can go through some things that should create that's annoying,” he added.

Licht said the media will have a “credibility” problem if democracy survives after President-elect Trump's second term. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Licht was hand-picked by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav in 2022 to help rebuild CNN's viewership and restore its journalistic credibility after the network spent years building a reputation as an anti-Trump news organization under predecessor Jeff Zucker.

CNN's rank and file resisted Licht's efforts to remove the show from its coverage. Among his biggest moves was firing prominent liberals from the air, including Brian Stelter, Don Lemon and Jeffrey Toobin.

However, Licht had completely lost the trust of CNN staff after the network hosted an infamous Trump town hall in May 2023, which sparked unprecedented anger within the media community. Licht was fired by Zaslav weeks later.

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Flash forward to November 2024 as financial problems and bad ratings continue to plague the network. Many of Licht's decisions were reversed — Stelter was rehired as a news analyst, and Toobin and Lemon made several guest appearances — and CNN's anti-Trump stories returned with a bang on Election Day.

CNN has been plagued by declining viewership in recent years. (Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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CNN's current honcho Mark Thompson is now tasked with stopping the bleeding of its dwindling audience and base. CNN employees told Fox News Digital that they are “very frustrated” as major budget cuts and layoffs could affect the network in the coming months.