Zucker’s last TV job, as president and chief executive of NBC Universal, came with a huge corner office atop Rockefeller Center. At CNN, his setup is comparatively modest but seems to suit his metabolism and inclination toward micromanagement: His small office opens onto the newsroom, his desk positioned to face a wall of 11 television screens, so he can constantly monitor his network and its competitors. Zucker was met with a mixture of enthusiasm and wariness when he arrived at CNN in 2013. He had a reputation for intensity and competitiveness, which were both in short supply at CNN. But he was also known for being obsessed with ratings. “You could feel the ground shaking,” one former CNN producer told me. “This iconic television producer was coming.”

Zucker’s tenure at CNN started inauspiciously. He talked about the need to “broaden the definition of news” and joked about replacing a pillow in one executive’s office that said “CNN = Politics” with one that read “CNN > Politics.” There were several short-lived experiments in programming, including the return of a warmed-over “Crossfire,” starring Newt Gingrich. Zucker’s news judgment was publicly and repeatedly called into question: In 2015, Jon Stewart devoted a large part of “The Daily Show” to mocking CNN for broadcasting the White House Correspondents Dinner rather than covering the protests after a black man, Freddie Gray, died in the custody of the Baltimore Police.

Absent a war or a natural disaster, Zucker cast around for an event that might capture the national attention. For 24 hours, the network went all-in on a cruise ship that was adrift with a broken sewage system and then devoted weeks to the mysterious disappearance of a Malaysian airplane. Don Lemon interviewed a llama in prime time.

The era of searching is over. Zucker has found a story to ride, “the biggest story we could ever imagine,” he says. And as it turns out, the only thing better than having Donald Trump on your network is having him attack it. Far from hurting CNN, Trump’s war against it has amounted to a form of product placement — “earned media,” you could say — giving its anchors and correspondents starring roles in the ongoing political drama, turning them into camera-ready warriors for the First Amendment. Zucker has not shied away from the conflict, which has been reassuring, even inspiring, to his staff. “I hate to sound like a fanboy, but he’s the best boss I’ve ever had,” Tapper, a former senior White House correspondent at ABC News, told me. It has also been good for business. Last year, CNN’s average daytime audience was up more than 50 percent, and its prime-time audience 70 percent. The network earned nearly $1 billion; it was the most profitable year in CNN’s history. Ratings are up again this year, which is expected to be more profitable still. And CNN’s newfound relevance may not be fully monetized until a few years from now, when its parent company, Turner Broadcasting System, renegotiates subscription fees with a variety of cable providers.

In his early months on the job, Zucker laid off journalists. Lately, he has been on a hiring spree, in particular for CNN’s digital operation. He brought on the veteran investigative reporters Carl Bernstein and James Steele to write for CNN’s website and appear on TV and poached BuzzFeed’s four-person investigative political-research team, “K-File,” led by Andrew Kaczynski. CNN.com has scored some big scoops in recent months. It was the first to report that U.S. intelligence officials briefed Trump about claims that Russia was in possession of compromising information on him, and it broke the story that the White House had asked the F.B.I. to publicly reject media reports that people close to Trump were in contact with the Russians during the campaign. Not only do stories like these generate traffic for CNN’s website, but they provide news for its hosts to discuss on-air. And while the numbers are dwarfed by those on the TV side, the network’s digital operation has become a revenue generator in its own right, bringing in $300 million in 2016.

Perched on the window sill of Zucker’s office, among the pictures of his family, is a framed cartoon of him shaking hands with Trump. “Another Trump stooge on the payroll, Don Don!” a plump-looking Zucker says. “Big league move, Zucker,” Trump replies. It was drawn by the political cartoonist Sean Corcoran last summer, when CNN hired the former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski as a contributor just days after he was fired by the campaign. I was surprised to find it in Zucker’s office. His critics saw the hiring of Lewandowski — who was accused of assaulting a female reporter and was still getting paychecks from the campaign during his five-month stint at CNN — as emblematic of everything that was wrong with Zucker and CNN. Namely, that he was more interested in staging fights and creating spectacles than in producing journalism. But Zucker doesn’t engage in second-guessing, let alone soul-searching.

“I don’t like that cartoon,” said CNN’s chief marketing officer, Allison Gollust, who was in Zucker’s office when I asked about it. “I don’t know why you framed it.”