CNBC’s Sorkin Lectures Kernen On Journalism After He Admits Rooting For Trump And Scolds CNBC’s Negative Coverage

CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin lectured co-anchor Joe Kernen about “the role of journalists” after Kernen admitted he was rooting for President-elect Donald Trump to win and scolded CNBC for not covering Trump more positively.

Sorkin and Kernen clashed frequently during the presidential campaign, often about Trump. Now that Trump has won, he’s been holding court at Mar-a-Lago for a conga line of business leaders anxious to influence the new administration, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg.

During a discussion of that dynamic on Thursday’s edition of CNBC’s Squawk Box, Kernen told Sorkin that CNBC was “on the wrong side of the trade” with its Trump coverage. Sorkin disagreed:

JOE KERNEN: Maybe we can grow like Bezos. Maybe we can grow into 22 times earnings.

BECKY QUICK: I think back to when we used to have Jack Welch on the program and he talked so much about regulatory overhang in Washington, how much trouble that caused for business along the way. He just talked about the idea if you could slice a lot of those things. So this has been kind of a quest for business for decades and decades. But now the reality of potentially having a president who is going to go, I.

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Also would just add, but there also is the issue of, look, there’s an idiosyncratic issue, which is I think each of those people that you just saw have business in front of the president. Yes, you will. And I think that there is a very strong.

JOE KERNEN: Can’t beat them, join them

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: That if you can’t beat them, join them and–.

JOE KERNEN: Jealous of Tim Cook’s relationship.

BECKY QUICK: And to not want to be singled out–

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I think at this moment in time, Trump is not the president yet and you’re hoping for the best. There is a honeymoon period, and we’ll see. And I think, you know, there’s a lot of hope.

BECKY QUICK: It goes to all the the executives who have made their way to Mar a Lago or Zuckerberg or–.

JOE KERNEN: I think it would have been easier as a maybe for us as a network to maybe cover more positively the the possibilities of of capitalism being unleashed and deregulation and lower taxes and all the things.

I just think we’re on the wrong side of the trade. And I you know, I’m glad that I you know, it’s not easy. It’s not easy. It’s not easy to to have been sort of hoping for this outcome and being challenged–. (PAUSE) See what I’m saying?

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I think that everybody’s got a different role in this, which is that I think —

JOE KERNEN: But I think it was a no-brainer–.

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: You have a role to be on a side–.

JOE KERNEN: If you if you embrace business, you embrace capitalism, if you’re pro-business and not anti-business. I just think that it would have been much better to–.

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I think, for better or worse, that the role of journalists is to be professional skeptics, hopefully not cynics, but skeptics.

That is– that is the gig. I don’t know if it’s good or bad. But it is the gig.

JOE KERNEN: You can always fall back on that. That gives you a lot. That gives you a lot of leeway to just be what we’ve seen the mainstream media and legacy media bethrough this entire election process. And I don’t think they can be proud of a lot of it. I don’t.

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Let me continue–

Watch above via CNBC’s Squawk Box.