Trump has called journalists the enemy of the American people, and has repeatedly referred to CNN as fake news (more often than not, deploying all-caps). But if CNN and Trump are at war, it’s the most symbiotic war ever waged. CNN thrives when there’s one story to cover all day every day. Trump thrives when he is that story (as he has been on CNN since the early days of his campaign). From the NYT Magazine: CNN Had a Problem. Donald Trump Solved It “It’s hard to imagine that either Trump or Zucker would be where he is today without the other. Trump’s foray into reality TV gave Zucker a prime-time hit when he badly needed one; now, Trump’s foray into politics has given Zucker a big story when he badly needed one. It’s a symbiotic relationship that could only thrive in the world of television, where the borders between news and entertainment, and even fantasy and reality, have grown increasingly murky.”

+ And it’s not just CNN. As Mathew Ingram reports, “last year, adults over 18-years-old watched over 27 billion minutes of national cable television news programming per week. That’s almost 45% more than they watched in 2015.” Trump said we’d get tired of all the winning. And for chief revenue officers at media companies, that might very well be true.