Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump threatened to pull out of a CNN town hall Monday after claiming the network only invites his “opponents” on their news shows, which came just hours after his top spokeswoman appeared on the network.
Wow, @CNN has nothing but my opponents on their shows. Really one-sided and unfair reporting. Maybe I shouldn’t do their town-hall tonight!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016
The message came less than two hours after spokeswoman Katrina Pierson, who frequently appears on CNN, told anchor Don Lemon that “no one has attacked Heidi Cruz,” least of all the billionaire real estate mogul.
But Trump’s claim is patently false. His surrogates have become fixtures on the breaking news network this election cycle.
An hour after Pierson’s segment, Kayleigh McEnany, who has also frequently come on the network in her capacity as a “Trump supporter,” appeared on CNN’s “Newsroom with Carol Costello” to talk about Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s impending endorsement in the GOP race.
On Monday, frequent Trump surrogate Scottie Nell Hughes dropped in on “The Situation Room” with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer to talk about the recent attacks on both Trump’s and Cruz’s wives.
Jeffrey Lord, a CNN contributor and Trump backer, often sings the candidate’s praises on the network, too. He even defended Trump’s failure to strongly denounce an endorsement from a former Ku Klux Klan leader last month, claiming that David Duke is actually a “hardcore leftist.” Lord fought the same battle during CNN’s live Super Tuesday election coverage.
Stephen Miller, a former aide to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), appeared Thursday on CNN’s “At This Hour With Berman and Bolduan” to defend the same Trump retweet of an unflattering photo of Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) wife, Heidi.
Last Friday, Boston Herald columnist Adriana Cohen sparred with former Cruz staffer Amanda Carpenter over the National Enquirer’s bizarre and unfounded allegation that the senator was hiding multiple extramarital affairs. Cohen, a Trump supporter, went as far as floating the unsubstantiated rumor that Carpenter had an affair with Cruz.
The same day, an exchange with former “Apprentice” contestant Omarosa Manigault got so heated that CNN’s Lemon abruptly ended the segment and asked producers to cut her mic when she dodged a question about the photo retweet fiasco.
Roger Stone has also been an A-list Trump source for the network, providing CNN viewers with his analysis of Trump’s inner psychology both before and after he worked with the campaign as an adviser. Media Matters noted Stone appeared on the network seven times in February 2016 alone.
Finally, the candidate himself frequently calls in for phone interviews on cable news programs. A new report from Media Matters found CNN interviewed the billionaire 11 times in March for nearly three full hours of air time, without counting debates.
Earlier this month, BuzzFeed reported that Trump has appeared by phone a whopping 69 times in as many days, putting in nine phoners to CNN during that time frame.
