It is no secret that CNN’s ratings are suffering up and down the primetime lineup. The network regularly finishes in third place behind both Fox News and MSNBC – ahem, MS NOW – but that doesn’t seem to have the CNN talent looking in the mirror to figure out what’s wrong.
On the contrary, host Abby Phillip, whose NewsNight with Abby Phillip airs at 10pm ET, has been out there insulting some of the only guests who actually get people to tune in to her program to begin with.
The anchor threw commentators Jillian Michaels and Scott Jennings under the bus during a recent podcast interview, which Megyn and her guests on Wednesday’s show – Mark Halperin, Sean Spicer, and Dan Turrentine – agreed is media malpractice for a number of reasons.
Phillip Finds Fault
Phillip made an appearance on the Pivot podcast with Kara Swisher where she was asked about “wrangling and sometimes wrestling to the ground all sorts of personalities” on her nightly round-table show, including Michaels and Jennings.
Last week, a moment from Phillip’s show went viral after Michaels defended President Donald Trump’s order for a review of the exhibits across Smithsonian museums to weed out wokeness and DEI. In a letter to the Smithsonian Institution, the Trump administration explained the goal of the internal review was to ensure the exhibits “celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”
On CNN Thursday, Michaels argued that the president is “not whitewashing slavery” and said “imperialism and racism and slavery” cannot be tied “to just one race, which is pretty much what every single [museum] exhibit does.”
“Do you realize that only less than 2 percent of White Americans owned slaves,” Michaels added. “You realize that slavery is thousands of years old?”
That did not sit well with Phillip. “I’m surprised that you’re trying to litigate who was the beneficiary of slavery,” she said. “In the context of American history, what are you saying is incorrect by saying that it was White people oppressing black people?”
But the story didn’t end there because Phillip decided to scold Michaels once again while talking to Swisher. “When it became clear that she was trying to sort of downplay slavery, I was just, like, shocked. Like, are you really going to do this on national television, giving her an opportunity to not do it, but she continued on,” she recalled. “And frankly, it was pretty ignorant.”
She went on to call Michaels’ argument “nonsensical” and claimed that she doesn’t like to speak “negatively” of her guests – except, apparently, when she does. “Look, I don’t like to talk… negatively about guests who come on the show because I just don’t think that’s good form,” Phillip said. “Even when I disagree with people, I respect their right to embarrass themselves on national television. I think it is their right to do that.”
While Swisher initially claimed that the pair wasn’t “getting into Scott Jennings here,” Phillip brought up her most newsworthy guest, who regularly makes headlines as the lone conservative on the panel, and she was no more gracious to him.
“I am never bringing people on to say crazy things. Let’s be frank about that. That is never the intention. Okay, people’s decisions to say crazy things are never expected or predictable,” Phillip claimed. “However… I know that folks really dislike Scott for his views. But I would say that, you know, there are views that you don’t like, that you think are unfounded, but that are pretty widely shared. And I think Scott falls into that category.”
And she didn’t stop there. “Now there are definitely times, if you watch the show, that we have conversations where I will say to Scott and others, ‘Just stop,” she added. “Because we’re not playing whatever game it is that you want to play in this moment.”
Ratings Woes
Halperin said that he learned from the late David Brinkley that, as a broadcaster, “you don’t speak ill of your guests after they leave and certainly not after they have been nice enough to give you some of their time.”
It is clear, Megyn noted, that Phillip didn’t get the memo since she and chose “take a massive dump” on “the people who make the show tolerable for some small faction of Republicans” who bother to watch. “She took a shot at Jillian, and then she took a shot at Scott,” she noted. “She needs to apologize for Scott Jennings because she has heard from the CNN audience, which is overwhelmingly left, that people don’t like him, and he says crazy things, and he’s such a lunatic.”
Spicer said it is an interesting strategy when you consider the fact “the only time anyone talks about CNN now” is “usually because of something that Scott Jennings said.” To that point, Megyn said the ratings are already down the drain.
While Fox News primetime has been drawing between 250,000 and 350,000 viewers in the key demo, CNN is barely cracking 100,000. On Tuesday, Megyn said Phillip had 91,000 in the demo compared to Greg Gutfeld’s 327,000.
“These numbers are just absolutely dreadful and, by the way, Abby Phillip is in last place. She is also losing to MSNBC. You cannot stay employed,” Megyn said. “But in any event, the solution is not to then start ripping the two guests you’ve had on who have said things that conservatives agree with.”
In the wake of a New York Times report detailing just how badly the Democrats are hemorrhaging voters, Turrentine said Phillip’s attitude is not the answer. “To start this show [we were talking about] the decline of Democratic voter registration,” he noted. “And now you have a host on a channel watched by a lot of Democrats… saying… Scott Jennings, who represents 50 percent of this country, [has to be] shut down often because his views are so, you know, unacceptable or not mainstream in her telling.”
“This is the feedback loop,” Turrentine concluded. “[Democrats] are increasingly getting narrow… instead of kind of welcoming the big debate. And we’re not going to get better until we open up.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Halperin, Spicer, and Turrentine by tuning in to episode 1,132 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.