HBO host Bill Maher ripped CNN host Kaitlan Collins during his show this week over the network’s left-wing bias, which he said is on constant display.
Maher made the remarks Friday night on “Real Time” while discussing an interview that Collins had with Stephen Colbert on CBS where she and her network were laughed at when Colbert said that they were a straight news organization.
“You made press because you were on Stephen Colbert’s show, and he said something like, ‘You guys at CNN just report the news straight.’ And the crowd burst into laughter,” Maher said. “I’m a big rooter for CNN, but that tells you a lot, doesn’t it?”
Maher asked Collins how she thinks her network is doing in this “terribly divided country” where both sides “just hate the other side.”
Collins claimed her show was “evidence” that CNN is a place where both sides can watch and be engaged.
“We’ll have Elizabeth Warren on one night, we’ll have Ted Cruz on another night,” she said. “I think lawmakers from both parties should take questions, and you should push both of them.”
She said that CNN was “a place of credibility” because the network sent hundreds of people to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) to give mostly fawning coverage of the event.
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Maher responded: “I’m talking about the people on CNN. And I know what the conservative side of America thinks, and I don’t blame them. I watched Kamala’s speech last night. It ended at 8:09, I guess 11:09 in the east.”
Maher said that CNN gave 15 straight minutes of glowing media coverage to Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris until “lonely Scott” Jennings, one of the only conservative voices on the network, chimed in and pushed back on what was being said.
“I watched from 8:09 to 8:23, they were just gushing about how great a speech it was,” he said. “And I think she did fine. I didn’t think it was as good as they were making it out to be. But if I’m a conservative in America and I’m watching CNN, just for the straight middle of the road, that’s what I hear for 15 minutes, is it’s great. And then lonely Scott. It does look, I mean, and when you see the panel, it does look like tokenism. It’s kind of like the same as ‘The View,’ it’s like, it’s almost better to have nobody there, like MSNBC, than to have this.”
Collins claimed that people like Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, and Abby Phillip give “analysis” and that they were fair voices on the network, to which Maher responded that they “come across” like Democrat activists.
“They come across that way. In a moment like that, it was like five to one,” he said. “It always looks like five one.”
WATCH:
Bill Maher asks CNN’s Kaitlan Collins why CNN’s reputation is so poor that Colbert’s audience laughed at the idea of CNN being an impartial news source:
Bill Maher: “You were on Colbert’s show, and he said ‘You guys at CNN just report the news straight’ and the crowd burst into… pic.twitter.com/2sE964CGvr
— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) August 24, 2024
