CNN’s Zucker says he has no plans to resign, despite Trump tweet

CNN’s Jeff Zucker said Thursday he has no plans to resign after President Trump hinted that the network president would be stepping down in a tweet last week.

Zucker told audience members at CNN’s Citizen civic engagement conference that he had an “announcement” before saying he will be staying put.{mosads}

“I do have an announcement to make today: I’m not resigning,” Zucker said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “I have no intention of resigning. I think there was probably too much ‘executive time’ that day. He clearly has been agitated by CNN, and there was probably something done that day and he was trying to take a shot at CNN and he uses me as a proxy for that.” 

The CNN president was responding to the president’s tweet on conservative activist group Project Veritas’s claims that Zucker had a bias against Trump.

Now that we have found out that @CNN is a virtual fraud, rumor has it that Jeff Zucker will be resigining momentarily?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2019

Zucker told the crowd at the conference that he found out about the tweet when someone showed it to him.

“Wow, I didn’t know that,” he responded at the time, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “My children started texting me and saying, ‘Is this true?'”

In his speech, Zucker also mentioned his openness to speaking with former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith and defended CNN’s decision to have pro-Trump voices on the network.

“It’s my belief that we should represent those out there who support Trump, what they think,” he said. “It is hard to find people who will come on and support the president’s view. We need those voices, and I think there’s a place for them.”