UPDATE: CNN responds. See below.

On his Tuesday radio program, Washington, D.C.’s WMAL talk show host Chris Plante revealed to his listeners that CNN president Jeff Zucker sees the criticism aimed at President Barack Obama over HealthCare.gov as not the product of a faulty website, but instead a product of racism.

According to Plante, who was a former CNN correspondent, two sources had told him that Zucker made that claim in a 9 a.m. conference call to the various CNN bureaus around the country.

“Now as many of you know, I used to work at CNN — the cable news network,” Plante said. “And the big boss there now — they swap them out pretty regularly is this guy, Jeff Zucker. Well, Jeff Zucker on the 9 a.m. editorial conference call just the other day was speaking to the troops — you know, all the big people at the bureaus around the country, get on the phone for the 9 a.m. editorial call and the big boss, Jeff Zucker, kind of lays out their strategy, their plan for the day.”

“You know — this is what we’re going to cover, these are the big stories, keep this stuff in mind as you go about your day and all that stuff,” he continued. “And according to two sources, CNN sources — on the 9 a.m. editorial call, he said all of this bashing of HealthCare.gov and the Obamacare thing was in the end — come on, take a guess — racist. That people are just saying Obama couldn’t build a website because he is black and you know, they hate him. That’s the president of CNN. That’s Jeff Zucker. That’s his guidance to the troops.”

The Daily Caller reached out to CNN for a comment, but as of 5 p.m. ET, has not received a response.

CNN’s ratings have struggled lately under Zucker’s guidance. Last week, CNN averaged just 385,000 total viewers and captured just 95,000 viewers in the coveted 25-54 demo.

Update:

A spokesperson from CNN denies the account.

“That never happened, simply untrue,” the spokesperson said in an email to The Daily Caller.

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