‘I Hate CNN!’ Charles Barkley Trashes Network in Interview With CNN’s Michael Smerconish

NBA veteran Charles Barkley did not mince words about CNN during a Monday interview with the network’s Michael Smerconish, bluntly declaring, “I hate CNN.”

Smerconish, who hosts a weekly CNN show along with a SiriusXM radio program, welcomed Barkley onto the latter Monday. The basketball star was in the middle of a rant against both ends of the American political spectrum, arguing that “people are brainwashed.” Importantly, he identifies as an independent.

“I don’t agree with everything the Democrats or Republicans do,” he told Smerconish. “Everybody should be an independent.”

“One of the reasons I hate CNN now, and I work with CNN,” Barkley continued, before he was cut off. In late 2023, the network launched King Charles, a talk show hosted by Barkley and Gayle King. The show was canceled in April of 2024.

“As do I,” Smerconish said — referring to the Saturday morning show he hosts on the network.

“Yeah,” Barkley went on. “But I try to support — be a good man. But I’m sitting there watching the night shows, and I’m like — they have two Republicans on, two Democrats. They scream at each other for an hour, and I’m like, ‘That’s just an hour of my life I can’t get back.’ Because the Republican on stage, everything the Democrats do is wrong. The Democrats say, ‘Everything the Republicans do is wrong.'”

The former NBA player then noted that panelists on the network are “all successful people,” highlighting a phenomenon he called “rich people against poor people.”

“The rich people — they’re smarter,” he explained. “They’re like, ‘Let’s just make the poor people fight with each other. And the poor people, they’ll be like, ‘You know, we’re actually in the same boat. We want economic opportunity. We live in poor neighborhoods. Our kids go to crap schools. We can’t afford to go to the big schools.’ But they’re like, ‘No, let’s make them fight with each other.'”

Watch above via YouTube.

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