CNN’s widely mocked interview with an anonymous member of the Sinaloa drug cartel has increased scrutiny of the embattled news network, whose multi-year effort, under two CEOs, to return to its roots and moderate its liberal bias appears to have failed.  

“I’m amazed at how anti-Trump they are,” a journalist, Mark Halperin, said on his “Morning Meeting” podcast.  “I thought, post-election, they were trying to go to the center and not be anti-Trump, but I’m just amazed.” 

On Saturday, the network aired a segment during which a correspondent for CNN International, Isobel Yeung, traveled to Sinaloa to interview an unidentified gang member, who wore a mask and sunglasses to shield his identity. 

Ms. Yeung asked the masked man, “What’s your message to Donald Trump?”

“My respect to him. According to him, he’s looking out for his people,” the gang member responded. “But the problem is the consumers are in the United States. If there weren’t any consumers, we would stop.”

Ms. Yeung asked the man about the Trump administration’s executive order that designates cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. 

“Well, the situation is ugly. But we have to eat,” the man said. 

Ms. Yeung, who formerly worked for a liberal news outlet, Vice, later appeared on the show of a left-wing anchor, Christiane Amanpour, where she spoke about the violence of the cartel and the thousands of people killed in gang-related violence. 

She also spoke about how the cartel member said the gang is being “agile” in response to pressure from the Trump administration, and repeated his talking point of blaming Americans for the cartel producing and shipping drugs into the country.

“They said that as long as President Trump is not addressing the bigger issue of addiction in the U.S., then they will continue feeding that demand,” she said. 

The segment was quickly criticized by social media users who accused the network of using the airwaves to spread cartel propaganda and make the murderous gang appear sympathetic. 

The deputy chief of staff for the director of national intelligence, Alexa Henning, shared the clip on X and wrote, “I knew the media and Dems would flip out during the second Trump admin but could not have predicted them sympathizing and siding with terrorists gang members. Shows how much they hate Trump and his supporters.”

Another observer wrote, “Just when you thought that they cannot go any lower. CNN is interviewing cartel members, and ask how they feel about being labeled terrorists. You cannot make this crap up!”

The chairman of the Republican Party of Florida wrote that CNN is “siding with the cartels.”

On Mr.  Halperin’s podcast, one of his co-hosts, a former Democratic operative, Dan Turrentine, questioned why the network would run the story in the first place. 

“That is baffling. I guess they’re in the news, and that may be the old ‘no news is bad news’ theory. CNN thinks they’re being talked about, but that is about as cringe-inducing as I’ve heard,” he said. 

CNN took a hard anti-Trump turn in 2017, which elevated ratings due to the “Trump bump” during the fevered first two years of his first term. In recent years, though, the original cable news network has been floundering, mired in low ratings and an identity crisis. 

CEO Chris Licht, who tried to carry out instructions from his overseers at Warner Brothers Discovery to pull CNN back to the center, was fired after a year. A new CEO, Mark Thompson, joined to much fanfare and has also tried to moderate CNN’s tone. In January, he reportedly ordered two of CNN’s anti-Trump news personalities, Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper, not to “express outrage” at President Trump during the Inauguration coverage. Messrs. Tapper and Cooper seemed like their spirits had left their bodies, a left-wing media columnist, Oliver Darcy, would write. 

In subsequent days and months, however, Messrs. Tapper and Cooper went back to making virulent, on-air attacks against Mr. Trump.

CNN did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment. The White House also did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment.

During her time at Vice, Ms. Yeung produced a segment in 2021 that was criticized by some viewers as being biased against Israel. As part of her report, she was blindfolded by Hamas terrorists and driven around for hours before being taken into the terrorist group’s extensive tunnel system for an interview. 

While conservatives on social media mostly ridiculed CNN for the segment, the decision by the network to continue churning out anti-Trump content could potentially pose problems for WBD’s chief executive, David Zaslav, and his goal of seizing on the opportunity in the next two to three years to aggressively acquire and consolidate struggling media companies. 

The interview also comes at a time when Mr. Trump has sued several news outlets for their reporting. In December, ABC News agreed to settle his defamation lawsuit for $16 million after anchor George Stephanopoulos falsely and repeatedly claimed that the president had been found liable for rape. 

Mr. Trump also sued CBS News over its editing of Vice President Harris’s October 2024 interview with “60 Minutes.” The lawsuit comes as CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, is in the process of trying to merge with Skydance Media, which requires the approval of the Federal Communications Commission. Executives at the two companies reportedly believe that the way to ensure the deal is consummated is to settle Mr. Trump’s lawsuit. The Wall Street Journal reports that executives have agreed to pay as much as $20 million, though the president expected to ask for much more as he has previously said CBS should pay “a lot.” It is possible that the settlement could require “60 Minutes” to issue an apology for the edits.

The chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, has said that the Harris interview could factor into his agency’s review of the Skydance deal. Meanwhile, he has said that companies that have “invidious” diversity, equity, and inclusion policies could have mergers blocked by the agency. Mr. Carr has also opened an investigation into Disney, the parent company of ABC News, for its DEI policies. 

Executives at Warner Bros. Discovery have reportedly sought advice on how to avoid scrutiny from the Trump administration. A New York magazine profile of Mr. Zaslav reported that one person in the “Trump orbit” suggested the company could pay the president or offer programming time to satisfy him. 

Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed to the magazine that it had “reached out to the Trump orbit seeking advice about how the company might advantageously interact with the White House and improve its Trump-age odor.” So far, it appears that the company has not offered any programming to members of the Trump family or a payment of some kind. 

However, Mr. Zaslav has been open, according to multiple reports from last year, about his view that the upcoming two to three years could be ripe with opportunities to buy up struggling media companies. Shortly after Mr. Trump’s 2024 election victory, Mr. Zaslav said the new administration “may offer a [change of pace] and an opportunity for consolidation that may be quite different” from the Biden administration, which aggressively filed antitrust lawsuits.

“This is an industry that really needs to consolidate,” he said. “Consumers put on a TV set and they see 16 apps, and each of those are doing different pricing and you’re sitting there with your phone and Googling where a show is … it’s just not a good consumer experience.”

While Mr. Zaslav may have hoped a new Trump administration would be more friendly to mergers of companies that have had rough relationships with the president, he may have difficulty fulfilling his dream of making acquisitions due to CNN’s coverage of the administration. The non-executive chairwoman of Paramount, Shari Redstone, reportedly asked if “60 Minutes” could hold off on running stories about the Trump administration until after the Skydance deal is approved due to concerns such content could lead to more scrutiny from the FCC. 

During Mr. Trump’s first term, antitrust regulators unsuccessfully sued to block AT&T from acquiring CNN’s parent company at the time, Time Warner. The litigation was seen in left-wing circles as being driven by the president’s frustration with CNN, though antitrust officials denied the allegation. 

Amid Mr. Zaslav’s optimism about being able to aggressively buy or sell companies, there have been questions about whether the current Trump administration would try to hinder such efforts. 

Thus far, CNN and Warner Bros. Discovery seem to have avoided the level of pressure that has been applied to other media companies. However, the decision to air what has been labeled propaganda for a designated terrorist organization, along with CNN’s long history of anti-Trump coverage, could be an issue that, similar to the Paramount-Skydance merger, leads to acquisition deals being delayed or blocked.