Journalist Keith Olbermann mocked CNN on Thursday for choosing to bring back their morning programme with Don Lemon, labelling the move a “sh**storm” and decrying Chris Licht, the new CNN president, as being naive.
Olbermann reacted to CNN’s introduction of the new programme with extreme disdain.
Poppy Harlow, who now hosts the midday programme, and White House reporter Kaitlan Collins will join Lemon as he transitions from his current 10 p.m. show to the new 6–9 a.m. time slot.
Olbermann, a podcaster who worked for MSNBC from 2003 to 2011, said that Licht, who worked there from 2005 to 2011, came up with the concept for the new programme.
He said that his previous employee was an imbecile who “used to eat paste.”
Olbermann tweeted: “Chris Licht, who I think used to eat paste when we worked together at msnbc, has surrounded Don Lemon with ex-Daily Caller “journalists” and someone who last month demanded that Biden apologise to Republicans.”
After graduating from college, Collins spent three years working for the Daily Caller before joining CNN in 2017.
Harlow questioned if Joe Biden would retract his characterization of pro-Trump Republicans as “semi-fascists” by the White House press secretary.
The “@CNN s***storm” has arrived, according to Olbermann.
Olbermann, a well-known left-leaning analyst, cited rumours that Licht was attempting to turn CNN more moderate and away from its Trump-critical stance.
The current morning show presenter, Brianna Keilar, couldn’t save her job, he said, by attacking Biden for taking a photo with Marines, which Olbermann claimed was a Republican talking point.
And @brikeilarcnn’s cut-and-pasted criticism of Biden’s marines, as well as her repeating and tripling down on this pitiful and dishonest talking point of the right, Olbermann said, did not rescue her.
You can never be doctrinaire enough for TV fascists like Licht and John Malone, they say.
CNN’s redesign is credited to Malone, a powerful board member of Warner Bros. Discovery and a millionaire media entrepreneur.
Both Keilar and John Berman, her co-host on CNN, will transfer to a different time period.
On Thursday night, Lemon denied having been forced out of charge of his nightly programme, saying he had been requested to host the show and had leaped at the opportunity.