Former CNN host Larry King didn’t hold back when he criticized his former employer for abandoning news in favor of its heavy coverage of President Donald Trump.
“CNN stopped doing news a long time ago, they do Trump,” King told RT America on Tuesday. “Fox is Trump TV. And MSNBC is anti-Trump all the time.”
King criticized CNN for carrying Trump “more than Fox News,” leading up to the 2016 presidential election — something that has now made Trump “the story” in America, King argued. “I would bet that 98 percent of all Americans mention his name at least once a day.” King said that the media is now shunning important news stories — like the “vicious winds and storms in the Northeast the other day” — with its nonstop coverage of Trump.
The 84-year-old broadcaster skewered the president as well, calling him “crazed” and saying he has authoritarian motives.
“I’ve known Donald for 40 years,” King said. “I know the good side of Donald, I know the bad side of Donald, I think he would like to be a dictator. I think he’d love to be able to just run things. So he causes a lot of this.”
CNN and the White House did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
King became the face of CNN in 1985 when he started hosting “Larry King Live,” his nightly one-hour interview show. He’s since hosted a program on RT America since 2013.
Coincidentally, King had glowing things to say about the network now cutting his checks. RT “is one of the few channels doing news,” he said.
RT — formerly known as “Russia Today” — is a Kremlin-backed news agency that was forced to register as a “foreign agent” by the U.S. Justice Department last year. RT was dubbed a “state-run propaganda machine” by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.