CNN lashed out on Wednesday responding to President Trump’s comments about their network. They wrote on Twitter stating emphatically: “CNN does not lie.”
The response came shortly after Trump increased his attacks on the network. Veteran reporter, Carl Bernstein, was the focus of Trump’s attack because of a July report about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
“Make no mistake, Mr. President, CNN does not lie,” the official Twitter account for CNN Communications tweeted late Wednesday. “We report the news. And we report when people in power tell lies. CNN stands by our reporting and our reporters. There may be many fools in this story but @carlbernstein is not one of them.”
Trump had tweeted this about the July report: “CNN is being torn apart from within based on their being caught in a major lie and refusing to admit the mistake. Sloppy @carlbernstein, a man who lives in the past and thinks like a degenerate fool, making up story after story, is being laughed at all over the country! Fake News”
Bernstein is known for helping uncover the Nixon-era Watergate scandal. He co-wrote an article for CNN in July, reporting that Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, was willing to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that then-candidate Trump knew about a June 2016 meeting between his son, Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer. The meeting promised dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Lanny Davis, Cohen’s attorney, later confirmed in a Washington Post report that he was the source for the story.
“I regret not being much clearer in saying I’m not sure about this story,” Davis, told NBC News.
CNN has said it stands by its story, despite Davis undercutting at least part of the reporting. Trump and his allies have used Davis’s comments in recent days to attack the network and its reporting on the Trump Tower meeting.
Bernstein also responded to the president’s attack. He tweeted: ”I have spent my life as a journalist bringing the truth to light, through administrations of both parties,” Bernstein tweeted. “No taunt will diminish my commitment to that mission, which is the essential role of a free press. [CNN] stands by its story, and I stand by my reporting.”
On Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. got caught up in the fray claiming that CNN was “covering for leftist hack” Bernstein by standing by their story.
“Comical to watch @CNN covering for leftist hack @carlbernstein,” the president’s eldest son tweeted. “He & Obama staffer @jimsciutto obviously got story wrong. CNN ‘stands by’ it anyway, defending literal fake news. 3 ‘reporters’ were fired for false CNN hit on [former White House communications director Anthony] Scaramucci & this is FAR worse!”
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway made similar remarks Wednesday in an appearance on “Fox & Friends.”
“What people will say on text and in emails or to their friends and their family members and certainly what they say on TV is fundamentally different than when you’re under oath. I think Lanny Davis (Cohen’s attorney) discovered that recently as well, as has CNN,” Conway said.
Share this:
