Fox News host Sean Hannity and the Hill media analyst Joe Concha praised White House deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka on Thursday for slamming CNN's ratings while having fun at CNN host Anderson Cooper's expense.
Hannity credited Gorka to completely "owning" Cooper before playing the clip of Gorka on Cooper’s show, Mediaite reported.
Gorka was pointing out how abysmal CNN ratings have been lately, landing 13th in ratings after cartoon shows played on "Nick @ Nite."
"It’s not about you," Gorka had said to Cooper. "It’s about actually having journalism back on TV."
Hannity also played an interaction he deemed "tough to watch," in which Gorka told CNN host Alisyn Camerota that CNN’s coverage was "desperate" to gain in ratings.
Concha said the multiple appearances and interviews that Trump administration officials have been participating in showed there was no "bunker mentality" in the White House.
Concha went on to say his biggest issue with Cooper's Gorka interview was when Cooper called Gorka the "Hungarian Don Rickles" after Gorka had already signed off.
"Here’s where I took issue with that interview: Anderson Cooper at one pointed scolded Sebastian Gorka and said, 'I’m just going to ignore the insults because I don’t think that it really gets us anywhere,'" Concha said.
"And in the post-interview analysis, after Gorka was off that interview, where he couldn’t defend himself, Anderson Cooper, who is an anchor—the face of that network and the highest paid person there, who should act like a professional—called Gorka the 'Hungarian Don Rickles,'" Concha continued.
Concha said this was an issue because Cooper was throwing insults at someone who wasn’t even on the show anymore to defend himself. He also pointed that Cooper’s insult was distasteful considering Rickles, a beloved entertainer, had just passed away three months earlier.
Hannity concluded the segment by asking Concha whether or not CNN president Jeff Zucker "will survive."
Concha said CNN’s ad revenue was still doing well, but being 13th in viewership and "trailing episodes of ‘Full House’" was not where the networks wanted to be.