CNN continued to avoid coverage that doesn’t fit the network’s narrative on Friday when it didn’t air President Trump’s Rose Garden comments on the heels of a surprise labor report that may indicate the start of an economic recovery amid historic job losses.
"We're bringing our jobs back," Trump said at the upbeat press conference covered by other outlets, including Fox News. "We're gonna be back there. I think we're actually going to be back there higher next year than ever before."
Shortly after skipping Trump’s remarks, the network interrupted programming to carry a press conference with Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the older brother of CNN host Chris Cuomo.
CNN DID NOT MENTION ON-AIR DAVID DORN, RETIRED ST. LOUIS POLICE CAPTAIN KILLED BY LOOTERS
CNN didn’t cover Trump’s remarks live, instead airing “CNN Newsroom” with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto. Former CNN pundit Steve Cortes tweeted, “It’s almost as if CNN is rooting AGAINST our economic recovery.”
When John King took over at 11 a.m. ET he aired a brief clip of Trump’s remarks and promised viewers that CNN would go to the Rose Garden if the president took questions from reporters.
King then brought on CNN chief Business correspondent Christine Romans to analyze the jobs report instead of broadcasting the president analyzing the numbers himself, which was occurring at the same time on other networks.
CNN eventually cut to the Rose Garden for a brief period as Trump sparred with reporters near the end of the event. After cutting away again, CNN’s chief political correspondent Dana Bash called Trump’s remark’s “rambling,” and slammed the comments that CNN viewers didn’t have a chance to see it for themselves.
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“It was a very lengthy statement, he went on and on, he had a teleprompter there, he clearly used it very sparingly,” Bash told viewers of Trump’s remarks. “It was a classic Trump moment trying to re-write history.”
CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Numbers released by the Labor Department indicated that the economy added 2.5 million jobs in May and the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 13.3 percent from 14.7 percent a month earlier. This was a stark reversal from expectations that the unemployment rate could near 20 percent in May.
Earlier this week CNN skipped on-air coverage of retired St. Louis police captain David Dorn, who was shot and killed by looters while attempting to protect a local store.
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Fox Business’ Megan Henney and Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report.
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