Brian Steinberg Senior TV EditorAs CNN’s many journalists tried to get past the ouster of Jeff Zucker, they ran up against one of their biggest professional hurdles: a source who refuses to talk.Some of WarnerMedia’s best-known on-air personalities pressed the company’s CEO Jason Kilar again and again on Monday, asking him to divulge more details around why Zucker resigned after acknowledging a personal relationship with Allison Gollust, CNN’s chief marketing officer.

But Kilar would not.The WarnerMedia chief faced questions from Don Lemon, Alisyn Camerota, Brian Stelter, Jim Sciutto, Bill Weir, Richard Quest, John Avlon and Victor Blackwell, as well as longtime producer Jim Murphy, many of them pressing him for more information about whether the parent company felt Zucker was given a harsher punishment than was necessary; about whether WarnerMedia was negotiating with Chris Cuomo, fired by Zucker last year, over severance; and whether the looming merger of WarnerMedia with Discovery forced his hand when it came to deciding what to do about the now former CNN chief. “It did not factor into the decision,” Kilar said of AT&T’s expected move to spin off WarnerMedia so it could merge with Discovery, according to a recording of the session reviewed by Variety.But Kilar didn’t have much else to say. “I accepted Jeff’s resignation and that matter is closed,” he said in response to questions from Blackwell. “I realize that’s not what you wanted to hear, but that is my answer.”CNN staffers have been in what one observer called “the five stages of grief” since Zucker announced he was resigning from CNN after a colorful nine-year stint.

CNN Anchors Grill WarnerMedia CEO on Jeff Zucker, But He Won’t Serve Them New Information

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