Bitter Much? Enraged by Ban, CNN REFUSED to Carry Trump’s UN Speech

Despite declarations from CNN journalists like Brian Stelter that those at the network simply want to do their jobs and cover President Trump (instead of being banned from the White House), their pomposity and penchant for martyrdom shone brightly Tuesday morning when CNN avoided carrying Trump’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly, even though live video was available from the UN itself.

In fact, CNN seemed to be alone in skipping Trump’s live speech, when compared to other leading broadcast, cable, or streaming platforms. Along with ABC breaking in for a Special Report, the following 18 channels carried live at least a portion of the speech:

ABC News Live, al-Jazeera English, Bloomberg, CBS News 24/7, CNBC, C-SPAN, France 24, Fox News Channel, GBTV, Live Now from FOX, NBC News NOW, Newsmax, Newsmax2, NewsNation, NTD, Real America’s Voice, Salem News Channel, and Sky News

Instead, from the moment Trump began his 37-minute address just before 10:30 a.m. and past its conclusion to noon Eastern, CNN’s The Situation Room had 19 segments on topics unrelated to the President and the UN.

Chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins had insisted earlier in the day that CNN had “never said we were not going to cover the President” and they’d be “monitoring all of” the day’s proceedings, but co-host Wolf Blitzer implied at 10:01 a.m. Eastern that CNN wouldn’t show it:

Happening now, President Trump is about to speak at the United Nations. Despite the White House barring CNN and other news organizations from the Presidential press pool, we do have a live signal of the President’s remarks provided by U.N. Television. We’ll monitor his speech and bring you any newsworthy moments as they happen.

Moments later, Collins reiterated “we never said we were not going to cover the President,” and that they “we...do our best to cover him each and every day” with today being one to observe “very closely” given his speech and flurry of meetings with world leaders.

Blitzer trumpeted the UN allowing CNN inside: “It’s really amazing, the United Nations open up — opens up the door to all the news organizations covering the President who’s in New York today for this U.N. speech even as the White House bars news organizations from covering the President of the United States.”

But despite the build-up, they kept their viewers in the dark about the speech.

First, there was a weather report, followed by an extended tease for Nolan Wells coverage:

After a break, Blitzer returned around 10:32 a.m. Eastern with news briefs on deaths in California wildfires, and then dashcam video of a car plunging into Lake Geneva following a high-speed chase.

Co-host Pamela Brown took over from there, bringing in correspondent Diane Gallagher on the breaking news that actress Hayden Panettiere did, in fact, die of a drug overdose (fentanyl among them).

CNN then spent the next nine-plus minutes on the Nolan Wells case as the local DA announced no charges in his death.

Here was the first segment, which started around 10:35 a.m. Eastern:

At 10:49 a.m. Eastern, CNN covered President Trump, but not his ongoing United Nations speech.

In fact, they didn’t even refer to it here, as Blitzer tossed to a report from correspondent Tom Foreman about Trump’s proposed arch in Arlington, Virginia:

The 10:00 am Eastern hour of CNN closed with sports briefs from Coy Wire about the following topics: Monday Night Football highlights, the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream beating Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever, Orioles first baseman Pete Alonso reaching 40 home runs, and a Minnesota Vikings player taking inspiration for celebration dance moves from his son

The Situation Room’s 11:00 a.m. Eastern hour began with Blitzer alluding to Trump’s speech: “President Trump addressing world leaders at the United Nations...amid a spreading conflict in the Middle East and a war of attrition in Ukraine.”

However, Blitzer and Brown spent roughly seven minutes bragging with CNN analyst Kim Dozier about a new CNN poll showing universally negative numbers for Trump:

Only then did CNN allow a report on the President’s UN address, once it had been over for roughly five minutes.

Start to finish, the segment with correspondent Kylie Atwood lasted only 92 seconds (click “expand”):

BROWN: And let’s go live now to CNN national security correspondent Kylie Atwood at the United Nations. Kylie, what are the headlines from President Trump’s address?

KYLIE ATWOOD: Well, President Trump spent a tremendous time of his speech focused on the Iran war, saying that he has a decision to make whether to annihilate Iran or to make a deal with Iran. We have heard this language from President Trump time and time again over the last six months, threaten U.S. strikes against Iran, sometimes following through on those threats and sometimes not. He also recounted what has happened over the last six-plus months, the United States trying to broker deals to end this conflict, turning to the Iranians for being the ones to violate that MOU that they struck earlier this year, but what we also heard from President Trump was that he does believe there will be an actual deal to end this conflict. And listen to what he said about the potential timing of that deal, from his perspective.

TRUMP: But I have a big decision to make. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world, or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we will make a deal right after the election.

ATWOOD: Now, we have heard some of this commentary from the President before. What is different now is that he is here in New York at the United Nations, and so is an Iranian delegation. We heard from Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this morning saying that the President would be open to meeting with the Iranians. A U.S. official told our colleague Alayna Treene that Trump has been interested in setting up a meeting if the conditions were right for that meeting between U.S. and Iranian officials. Obviously, it could be President Trump, but it also could be members of his delegation here, Steve Witkoff, who has engaged with the Iranians multiple times in recent months. We will watch and see if that comes to fruition. Of course, this is as the world is watching to see what the United States is going to do, because there really doesn’t appear to be a breakthrough on the horizon for ending this Iran war any time soon.

BROWN: All right.

BLITZER: All right, Kylie Atwood, thank you very, very much.

Once they did that, they did not cover it in depth for the rest of the hour (other than one passing mention in the AI block

Segment topics were as followed: CNN/MS NOW/Politico lawsuit, the Austin/ICE shooting, three news briefs (Trump Jr. wedding, northeast travel chaos, and Panettiere), an interview with Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) on AI, the Caleb Flynn trial, and a new book on GLP1s.

To see the relevant CNN transcript from September 22, click here.