Stelter: We May Never Know If CNN+ Was a Success or Failure

25 Apr 2022

CLAY: CNN+ collapses. Elon Musk on the verge of buying Twitter. The mask mandate finished. The overall expectations for November for it to be an absolute onslaught, a red wave of epic proportions. And Brian Stelter — who inexplicably has become one of the faces of left-wing absurdity — said, “You know what? We may never know whether CNN+ was a success or a failure.” Listen.

“It’s too early to know if this product, if this service was a success or a failure,” Stelter desperately tried to rationalize the implosion of CNN+. And he chided the “haters.” pic.twitter.com/vCFR3Q7dT4

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) April 22, 2022

CLAY: No. There’s not a lot of disappointment of subscribers, and look: When you spend $300 million on something, you make none of that back and you close it, it’s a failure. We know it’s not a success. I don’t know about you, Buck. If I lost $300 million on something, if I lost $30 million on something, if I lost $3 million on something, I ain’t happy. If I lose $300,000 on something, we know whether or not it’s a success or a failure. It’s a failure of epic proportions, one of the biggest in history.

BUCK: (impression) “But I think it’s fantastic that Brian Stelter could continue to sit here and just say it was honestly amazing. It just took more time than we had for us to realize how amazing it was.” By the way, your sources at OutKick…? Are we still being told that he may be elevated, ’cause I want Stelter on that wall. I need Stelter on that wall of lib media because him, The View, constant content for those of you on the other side.

CLAY: Bobby Burack at OutKick reported that Stelter is under serious consideration for his own show. What’s going on, like, Sundays now, right? Like he has a weekly show?

BUCK: Yeah. “The best part is it’s called Reliable Sources,” as if he’s in any way reliable. I mean, sit there and you wonder, how exactly is this show, which…? On any given week, there will be some enormous media story that is very distressing to the left, and it is generally just not covered at all over there, which is pretty funny. And they do some email news blast that will come out to people that will tell them what the big stories are.

I think Stelter still does that. They used to do that over at CNN, CNN media. It’s just a propaganda mill. I mean, that’s the thing. It’s fine if you want to be Democrat media. Just be honest about it. This is my thing about CNN. Just tell the truth. Just tell your viewers, “Guys, we’re all down. The entire network on left-wing Democrats.

“Everybody who’s on air here wants Democrats to win and we’re gonna tell you why.” I think MSNBC, without being so explicit, is pretty much there. I don’t think anybody believes MSNBC’s anything other than Democrat. CNN’s Stelter, this notion of their calling balls and strikes? This is why they have these massive failures. It’s just not true. It’s just indefensible.

CLAY: I’ve never seen Brian Stelter’s show. That’s not hyperbole. I have never. I’ve seen clips of it on social media occasionally —

People always joke that Brian Stelter is 35 and looks 50 at minimum.

But don’t worry, this is him at 23 pic.twitter.com/U0iaNKCDEM

— Toomst (@ToomersWs) April 24, 2022

BUCK: Can I tell you a quick, funny Stelter story, actually? He had me on his show maybe five years ago, and he wanted to ambush me ’cause I had called the terrorist attack an Islamic extremist attack that, by the way, turned out to be an Islamic extremist attack. But it was before the official narrative it’s like, you know, the guy is saying, “I’m doing this for ISIS,” and, “Allahu Akbar.” I’m like, “I think this is a jihadist attack.” But it was before the official narrative came out about that. And I will tell you, he got so smoked, they never aired the interview.

CLAY: Really?

BUCK: I’ve never had that happen. They just pretended that it didn’t happen. Yeah.

CLAY: So you taped with him.

BUCK: I taped for the show. He came at me on terrorism. I actually know what I’m talking about. I texted the producers: “You guys just cut that from the show?” “Yeah, breaking news.” We taped Friday; it was a Sunday show. There was no breaking news. But that’s what you’re dealing with. (impression) “So, Brian, if you want to come on, we can finish. We can do round two. We could have a discussion about how amazing CNN+ was. You call in; we’ll have a friendly discussion.”

CLAY: I’ve never listened to the show. He’s welcome to call in. If Stelter wants to call in and explain himself, we open phone lines: 1-800-282-2882. More people would hear him on here than watch him on his show.

BUCK: Oh, way more!