Host Bill Maher criticized CNN’s Kaitlan Collins over the left-wing network’s “infatuation” with Vice President Kamala Harris during the Democratic National Convention.
Maher, the host of Real Time with Bill Maher, spoke with the CNN host on his show Friday to ask questions about the network’s journalistic integrity. She insisted that the cable news network is objective.
He cited the awkward moment last week when Stephen Colbert’s audience laughed when he called the network “objective.”
“I’m a big supporter of CNN, but that’s saying a lot, right?” Maher, whose own show airs on the network on Saturday nights, stressed to the journalist.
“How do you think you do in the arena of, ‘This is a terribly divided country. Not only are we politicized, a lot of people just hate the other side.’”
“And CNN, to me, should be the place where both sides can watch. How do you think you do that?”
Bill Maher spoke to Kaitlan Collins on Friday about CNN’s journalistic integrity, as she insisted it was objective
But Collins argued that CNN is “the place where both sides can watch.”
“My show is evidence of that,” she claimed. “We have legislators from both parties. We have Elizabeth Warren on one night, we have Ted Cruz on the other night… I mean, look what just happened in Chicago.
“We had 300 people from CNN on the ground covering the convention. We had multiple reporters from just our team on the ground covering it in real time.
“And I think CNN is putting resources into making things happen and delivering news at a level that you can’t get anywhere else.”
But Maher interrupted him and said, “I’m talking about the people at CNN. And I know what the conservative side of America thinks. And I don’t blame them.”
He then referenced CNN’s coverage of Harris’s speech at the convention on Thursday night, noting that she had completed her speech at 11:09 p.m. EST.
Maher noted that there was only one conservative on the network’s panel, who came on the air about 15 minutes later — but Collins argued that CNN is “the place where both sides can watch.”
“It took until 11:23 until that one conservative guy. What’s his name again?”
“Scott Jennings,” Collins replied, referring to a Republican political strategist.
“I call him Lonely Scott,” Maher replied, to which Collins noted that lobbyist David Urban was also there.
‘From 8:09 to 8:23 [Pacific Time]“They were just raving about how great their speech was,” Maher said of the CNN panel.
“And I think she did a great job. I didn’t think it was as good as they made it out to be.
“But if I’m a conservative in America and I watch CNN just for the right center, that’s what I hear for 15 minutes. ‘It’s great.’
“And then Lonely Scott,” he said.
“It’s almost like tokenism. It’s kind of like ‘The View.’ It’s almost better to not have anyone there, like MSNBC.”
Maher argued that it is almost better to have no conservative on the panel than to have a token conservative
However, Collins pushed back against Maher’s characterization of the network.
“I don’t think you can say it’s better not to have anyone there and then complain that you think conservative Scott Jennings — who is wonderful and who we have on my show all the time — didn’t speak up early enough,” she argued.
‘It was a Democratic convention, they turned to Democrats… for their analysis of this. And I don’t think you can say CNN isn’t being fair, I mean, we’ve been following President Biden’s exit from the race very closely, the pressure on him to get out.
“And I feel like I can speak with authority on this,” Collins continued.
“I’m from Alabama. I’m from a very red state. I come from a very conservative family. A lot of them are Trump voters.
“They watch my show every night and I think they know they can trust me. I know we’re talking nonsense from all sides, not just what our audience thinks. I think people actually want to see that more often.
“And everybody who spoke last night, they weren’t all Democrats,” she added. “I mean Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, Abby Phillip, all my great colleagues — they came on and gave analysis.”
“It comes across that way,” Maher agreed, though he continued to maintain that the reporting was unbalanced.
“At a time like this it was like five against one. It always seems like five against one,” he argued.
The interview came just days after Collins faced harsh words from conservatives for walking back on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s disputed claims about Donald Trump.
The awkward interview came days after Collins was criticized by conservatives for his failure to challenge Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s controversial claims about Donald Trump.
On Tuesday night, she interviewed Shapiro at the Democratic National Convention and asked him about Trump’s claims that anti-Semitism led to him being passed over as Harris’ running mate.
“Donald Trump has absolutely no credibility to speak on that issue,” Shapiro said. “He’s a person who has behaved in a bigoted manner, he’s a person who spreads hate.”
He then addressed Trump’s response to the 2017 Charlottesville riots, saying that Trump’s response to the neo-Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us” was to say, “There are good people on both sides. There were no good people on either side!”
This claim has been disputed by several fact checkers, including Sniffing And Political factnoting that Trump was referring to neo-Nazis and white nationalists, but to protesters and counterprotesters focused on the original reason for the rally: removing a statue of a Confederate general.
The former president said in the same press conference, days after the riots, that neo-Nazis and white nationalists should be “completely condemned.”
This led many to criticize Collins, a veteran of the conservative Daily Caller newspaper, for his failure to respond to Shapiro’s already disputed claims.
John LeFevre wrote: “Here is Governor Josh Shapiro willfully repeating the Charlottesville lie to paint Donald Trump as an ‘intolerant.’ @kaitlancollins – who is quick to criticize Republicans – does nothing to correct him.
“This is not journalism.”