After Charles Barkley helped call the Knicks/Kings game at Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento last night, TNT had him do a segment to help promote the Republican debate that is going to be held on CNN on Tuesday night. TNT and CNN are sister stations, so the thought was that the Chuckster could help stir up some interest in the debate. And boy, did he ever.
Barkley had no problem talking at length about CNN’s coverage of the debate and the Presidential election process as a whole, but what he had to say wasn't at all positive. After ripping Donald Trump for the way he has been handling his business lately—specifically, Barkley took issue with Trump’s recent comments about Muslims—Barkley ripped CNN, too. He feels as though they’ve done an “awful” job covering Trump and the other Presidential candidates this year.
“CNN has done an awful job this election, an awful job,” he said. “They have followed ratings and sound bytes this entire cycle…I love CNN, they’re part of our company, but they’ve been kissing butt, chasing ratings. I mean, they have become like Fox News for the Republicans, to be honest with you. They follow every single sound byte just to get ratings for their debates and it’s been sad and frustrating that our company has sold their soul for ratings.”
Wow. We like that he slipped “to be honest with you” in there, as if we couldn’t tell that he was being honest. Maybe a little too honest.
You can check out his commentary on CNN at around the three-minute mark in the clip above. Think he’ll get into trouble for this?
Send all complaints, compliments, and tips to sportstips@complex.com.
[via Sporting News]
