CNN death spiral caused by obsession with Trump-Russia investigation, ex-anchor says

A former CNN anchor said that the network’s incessant coverage of the Russia collusion investigation during President Trump’s first term in office helped accelerate its “death spiral” which cost the outlet “30, 40% of the country.”Dave Briggs, the former co-host of CNN’s “Early Start” from 2017 until 2019, said on a podcast that the network alienated much of middle America with its nonstop focus on the probe into whether the Russians helped Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.He said he clashed with his then-bosses over the network’s strategy.“Every day I came in and argued with the powers that be about obsessing over the Russia investigation when no one I know off of the East Coast gave a damn how that investigation ended,” Briggs told former CNN colleague Alisyn Camerota and guest Dylan Byers on the “Sanity with Alisyn & Dave” podcast on Monday.“And to me, that’s when they lost 30, 40% of the country, and I think the ratings kind of backed that up.”Briggs added that “it was that obsession” that turned off viewers.“When I would talk to my friends across the country, and I mean not on the East Coast, outside this bubble in which we all exist — they would always say to me, ‘I just want to know what the hell else is going on in the world’,” Briggs said.“That’s what they would say to me every day, and that’s what led them away from CNN.”A CNN source told The Post: “It’s disappointing to see people speak so naively about media and where they used to work, all in an effort to profit.”In 2017, Special Counsel Robert Mueller launched an investigation which examined Russian interference in the 2016 US election, links between the Trump campaign and Russia and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.It concluded that Russia interfered in the election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” to help Trump, but did not find sufficient evidence to charge the campaign with criminal conspiracy.At th...