OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
CNN is on its last legs as a network and after suffering one of its most brutal defeats it may be close to the end of the line for one of its flagship anchors.
On Friday the Newsmax show “Greg Kelly Reports” was guest hosted by Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz and, even as CNN appears in far more homes than Newsmax does, Gaetz trounced the CNN host in the ratings, Mediaite reported.
“You’re on the right channel. If you’re confused, your eyes are not failing you, and Greg Kelly did not suddenly get better hair,” he said to start the show on Friday.
“I’m Matt Gaetz. Thanks for joining us on ‘Greg Kelly Reports.’ Greg has the night off and I have the biggest stories driving Washington, D.C. right now,” he said.
Mediaite reported.
On Friday night, Gaetz added another line to his media resume by outperforming CNN in the cable news ratings. He was the only Newsmax host to win an hour against one of the three main networks, beating CNN with 282,000 total viewers to 249,000 total viewers. CNN was airing an episode of The Whole Story With Anderson Cooper.
Cooper’s special programming did, however, beat Newsmax in the key 25-54 age demographic with 41,000 viewers to 38,000. By comparison, Fox News won the hour with 106,000 demo viewers and 1.23 million total viewers.
Newsmax, in recent weeks, has won several hours over CNN – particularly with Eric Bolling beating Anderson Cooper at 8 p.m. Bolling’s wins come at a time when his audience has seen a boost following the firing of Tucker Carlson from Fox News and the continued fallout from CNN’s Trump town hall.
It comes at a time when Gaetz has been speaking against the debt ceiling legislation agreed upon by Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden.
“If a majority of Republicans are against a piece of legislation and you use Democrats to pass it, that would immediately be a black letter violation of the deal we had with McCarthy to allow his ascent to the speakership, and it would likely trigger an immediate motion to vacate,” he said, The Washington Examiner reported.
“I think Speaker McCarthy knows that,” he said. “That’s why he’s working hard to make sure that he gets, you know, 120, 150, 160 votes. And that’s why those of us who are not supportive of the bill are trying to point out that many of the changes are cosmetic in nature.”
But last week the Florida firebrand said he had “no plans” to remove McCarthy after “Fox News’s Chad Pergram reported that a source close to the negotiations told him McCarthy needs 180 Republican votes as a bare minimum to pass a debt ceiling bill — if he doesn’t, a conservative Republican could call for a motion to “vacate the chair” in a vote of no confidence in McCarthy’s leadership,” the Washington Examiner reported.
But Gaetz pushed back and said that is not an option he’s entertaining at the moment because McCarthy has held up his end of the bargain.
“I have no plans to seek the removal of Speaker McCarthy barring some dramatic, unexpected turn of events,” Gaetz said in a statement to the Examiner.
“You don’t remove someone simply because you disagree with them. By that standard, no speaker would last a single day. Speaker McCarthy simply must deliver on the promises he made in January. So far, his record doing so is admirable. So far,” he added.
In late April, Republicans successfully passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act of 2023, a bill that is widely regarded as McCarthy’s most significant achievement during his tenure. Subsequently, House GOP leaders have been engaged in negotiations with the White House, aiming to identify provisions of mutual agreement and determining the boundaries that neither side is willing to compromise on.
