CNN prime time star Anderson Cooper broke his silence about the troubled 14-month tenure of Chris Licht, saying that he had no idea what direction his fired boss wanted to take the network.
“I don’t know what Chris Licht’s analysis was,” Cooper told The New York Times Magazine over the weekend — just days after Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company, announced that it was hiring former New York Times chief Mark Thompson to run the ratings-challenged network.
“I don’t have much confidence that I actually know what he was thinking,” Cooper said of Licht, who was pushed out in June after a tumultuous 14-month stint.
Cooper was asked if the lack of communication from Licht — an issue that was dissected in a devastating Atlantic magazine profile that eventually led to his ouster — posed a problem.
“Yeah, that’s a problem. I mean, I read things in the paper, but I’m not sure what the point of it all was,” Cooper said.
Licht was hired by Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav with a mandate to bring CNN’s programming back to the political center — a far cry from the left-leaning commentary and analysis that was a feature of the network’s coverage of the Trump administration under predecessor Jeff Zucker.
But the host of “Anderson Cooper 360,” which airs at 8 p.m. and is one of the network’s better-rated programs, said there was never any urgency to sit down with Licht because his show was “trying to be straight down the middle.”
“My sense from Chris was there was not a lot we needed to hash out because I’m not an opinion host,” he said.
“I’m talking to people from different sides and trying to be straight down the middle and represent things fairly and accurately.”
Cooper added: “I keep my head down. I just try to do the best I can.”
Cooper said that Licht had other concerns during his tenure.
“I don’t want to make it sound like I never had meetings with him,” Cooper said of Licht.
“I did have meetings with him. I just think the things he viewed as his more immediate concerns did not involve me.”
One of Licht’s most controversial decisions was green-lighting a town hall featuring former President Donald Trump.
While the event generated significant ratings for CNN, it drew backlash, particularly over Trump steamrolling moderator Kaitlan Collins as well as comments about a journalist who successfully sued the former president after claiming he raped her.
Cooper defended CNN for staging the town hall, but in his interview with Times Magazine, he changed his tune.
“I personally would not have chosen to do a town hall,” Cooper said.
“The town hall format is a specific format that CNN has done effectively for a lot of candidates.”
“I don’t think the first time Donald Trump came back on CNN — I wouldn’t have done a town hall, and if he’d said no, I would have said fine, then he’s not on,” Cooper said.
“But that’s not my choice. I wasn’t involved.”
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