Posted Tuesday, April 3, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog

Donald Trump gets riled up by CNN every so often and gets on the Twitter. This morning, he falsely claimed that "you cannot get a job at CNN unless you state that you are totally anti-Trump."

Trump then called CNN chief Jeff Zucker "Little Jeff Zuker [sic]" and said he "isn't having much fun lately."

CNN clapped back, saying "the personal political beliefs of CNN's employees are no interest to us. Their pursuit of the truth is our only concern. Also, Jeff's last name is spelled Z-U-C-K-E-R. Those are the facts."

As for "ratings challenged," CNN said it just had its second best first quarter in nine years. Sure, it's well behind Fox News and loses to MSNBC in prime time but its ratings relatively speaking are doing well -- thanks in part to Trump himself.

CNN also cited a Monmouth poll in which respondents trusted CNN more than Trump, who has successfully twisted the phrase "fake news" to not just mean actual false information but also any factual information he doesn't like to hear or accept.