Media

CNN Locks Horns With The Daily Caller After Presidential Retweet

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CNN and The Daily Caller mixed it up on Twitter after President Donald Trump posted a story from the Caller about the network’s poor Democratic presidential town hall ratings.

Trump retweeted the story by the Caller’s media reporter Mike Brest on Thursday evening:

“Every single one of the 12 Democratic presidential town halls held so far in 2019 by CNN lost against simultaneous programming on other cable news networks, as of last Thursday,” Brest wrote. “The average viewership of CNN’s town halls were approximately 903,000 people. Comparatively, the Fox News programming that was going on while the town halls aired averaged 2.2 million viewers, whereas the MSNBC programming had 1.8 million viewers.”

Quick to notice the slight after Trump’s tweet, CNN responded on the president’s feed by insisting they don’t do the events “for ratings,” but rather to “inform and empower voters.”

“CNN does not host presidential town halls for ratings,” the network wrote, along with a #factsfirst hashtag. “We host them because substantive conversations with presidential candidates inform and empower voters to make the best possible choices for their families and communities. And it’s the right thing to do.” (RELATED: Gillibrand Has Had Town Halls On CNN, MSNBC — Her FNC Appearance Trounced Those Ratings)

However, some were quick to question the network’s truthfulness. The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Peter Hasson came at them with a screengrab of CNN host Brian Stelter lauding the ratings Sen. Kamala Harris brought to her town hall in January.

Then, the Caller’s social media team got the last word (for now).

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