For Someone Who Claims to Not Watch CNN, Trump Seems to Watch a Lot of It

The president’s tweet reveals remarkable familiarity with Don Lemon’s LeBron James interview. How does he do it?

LeBron James listens to a question at a news conference after the opening ceremony for the I Promise School in Akron, Ohio, Monday, July 30, 2018. The I Promise School is supported by the The LeBron James Family Foundation and is run by the Akron Public Schools. Phil Long/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

President Donald Trump has been saying for more than a year now that he never watches CNN. In February last year, during a Black History Month event, he said, “I don’t watch CNN…I don’t like watching fake news.”

In a rambling April 2017 interview with the AP, Trump again and again reiterated his boycotting of the network:

The one thing I’ve learned to do that I never thought I had the ability to do. I don’t watch CNN anymore…they treat me so badly…I stopped watching them. But I don’t watch CNN anymore. CNN has covered me unfairly and incorrectly and I don’t watch them anymore. A lot of people don’t watch them anymore, they’re now in third place. But I’ve created something where people are watching…but I don’t watch CNN anymore.

But the president, who is reportedly in front of a TV at least four hours a day, and often twice that much, according to the New York Times, has once again shown that he’s awfully tuned in to what’s going on on the network he loves to hate. Witness his latest Twitter rant against NBA star LeBron James, which took place within minutes of CNN’s Friday night airing of an interview of James by host Don Lemon. The interview focused on the opening of a public school for at-risk kids started, and largely funded, by James.

The interview with James starts around 11:25 pm EST.

At 11:37 pm EST, Trump tweeted:


The tweet revealed that Trump is indeed paying close attention to CNN, perhaps to the exclusion of professional basketball. Michael Jordan, to whom he was apparently referring, hasn’t been on a pro court since he retired for the last time in 2003. But Trump’s tweet seemed to bring Jordan out of retirement, at least long enough to support James:

 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate