While Ted Koppel was making headlines Sunday for telling Sean Hannity to his face that he’s “bad for America,” CNN was getting a second round of criticism from podcaster and former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett, who called the network’s choice of conservative voices “terrible.”
Lovett, who co-founded the progressive media company, Crooked Media, and started a podcast called “Pod Save America” in hopes of inspiring activism, was invited on Stelter’s show “Reliable Sources” to discuss the surge in political podcast popularity since Donald Trump was elected president.
But the conversation quickly turned to cable news, and Lovett wasn’t afraid to air his grievances, telling Stelter that CNN selects the wrong people to represent conservatives on their political panels.
“So often on CNN there are world-class journalists interviewing campaign rejects, ideologues and silly craven people who do not care about informing people, who aren’t there to help people understand what’s going on in the news,” Lovett said.
When describing how he views a CNN panel, Lovett said it consisted of “smart person, smart person, smart person, stupid person, smart person, smart person, bulls–t factory.”
“Why does it help you to insult Trump supporters that way?” responded Stelter.
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“I’m not insulting Trump supporters; I’m calling the people that CNN puts on television terrible representatives of the views of conservatives,” Lovett said. “[They are] not intellectually honest people. These are people building a brand, willing to say anything.”
Watch a portion of Lovett’s argument in the clip above.