Megyn Kelly blames Jeff Zucker – not the freshly fired Chris Licht – for the downfall of CNN, saying the previously ousted boss pulled the network, its on-air talent and its reporters so far to the political left that the only way to save it now is with mass firings throughout the rank-and-file.
The former Fox News host had several fiery takes on Wednesday’s “The Megyn Kelly Show” regarding the still-breaking news that Licht had been booted after a little over a year on the job – none hotter than a call for a savage spring cleaning through the ranks of CNN.
Beyond just seeking a new audience, “the workforce must be changed as well,” Kelly said. “The ones who cost the network its reputation in the first place. The far-left producers deciding on CNN’s online and show content. Their influence is enormous and extraordinarily brand-damaging … CNN has activists who will never embrace a fair and balanced mission. Each one of them should be rooted out and fired.”
Kelly praised the late Roger Ailes, her former boss and longtime Fox News chief, for bringing even “lefty” journalists in line with the network’s point of view – something she said Licht could never do. She acknowledged that Licht had “real problems” to solve, mostly the doing of Zucker, but that he just wasn’t the guy for the job.
“The problem was one of ego, style and approach,” Kelly said. “Licht inspired, as far as I can tell — no one. … He seems to be a man of fragile ego.”
Kelly also called out several of CNN’s on-air talent as targets for termination.
“Its brand has changed from ‘most trusted’ to ‘most pathetic,’” she said. “Jim Acosta and his enormous ego … Brianna Keilar and her sneering coverage of anything Trump-related, Alison Camerota and her snide judgments, Christian Amanpour and her smug elitism, even formerly benign anchors like Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer are now more associated with ‘the resistance’ than with straight news journalism. The soul-searching, tearful meltdown post-Trump town hall is just the latest example of how far left the network has gone. Are we in the news business, or aren’t we folks?”
Watch the entire thing in the video clip above.
