Ted Turner, the fiery billionaire who built CNN and transformed global media, is dead at 87. But what makes this story unforgettable is how his fiercest political rival chose to honor him.
Donald Trump, often the master of the brutal takedown, did something rare: he showed grace. Despite Turner pouring millions into Democratic causes and calling Trump everything under the sun, the President didn't lash out.
Instead, Trump called Turner "one of the Greats of All Time" and a true friend who was always there when it mattered. He even mourned what CNN had become—a "woke" ghost of Turner's original creation.
Turner's death comes after a long battle with Lewy body dementia, a cruel brain disorder he revealed back in 2018. He'd also survived a bout of pneumonia just last year, only to slip away quietly now.
No official cause has been released, but the silence doesn't dim the legacy. Turner gave away a billion dollars to the United Nations and bankrolled left-wing causes for decades—yet his enemy spoke of him with respect.
That's the thing about Trump: you never know which way the pendulum will swing. Compare this to his blistering reaction when Hollywood leftist Rob Reiner and his wife were murdered last December.
Reiner had spent years branding Trump "mentally unfit" and screaming about Russian collusion. So when the tragic news broke, Trump didn't hold back. He blamed "Trump Derangement Syndrome" for Reiner's death—a disease of the mind, he said, that caused the anger that destroyed them.
The contrast is staggering. One death gets a warm salute to a media titan, the other gets a sharp diagnosis of political madness. And that makes Ted Turner's exit all the more fascinating—it proves that even in the most divided times, genuine respect can still break through.
