Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:48 pm
President-elect Donald Trump is still full on histrionic about CNN running the bombshell Trump Russia Compromise story and he just can’t get over it, even though he spent eight years doing much worse to President Obama, based on much less.
So Thursday morning the next president accused CNN of being in a total meltdown:
.@CNN is in a total meltdown with their FAKE NEWS because their ratings are tanking since election and their credibility will soon be gone!
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— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2017
Perhaps by “meltdown” Trump is referring to CNN’s brilliant countermove after Trump called them “fake news” during his “press conference” (which wasn’t really a press conference). CNN demanded Trump point out the inaccuracies in their story on his possible Russia compromise.
Crickets to that question, cue more hysterical accusations from Trump.
CNN is not in a meltdown, let alone a total meltdown. CNN covered an important story that they should have covered, and they did it responsibly and professionally. Trump doesn’t like it because the story is about him, and it is centered on a report by a credible source, that he has been compromised by Russia. This report is being verified by the intelligence community, but if it’s true, and it came from a credible source not some imaginary internet video like Trump uses as credible sources, it means impeachment at the very least for Trump. So it’s a big deal.
Wednesday’s press conference was supposed to distract from this very serious issue, but it turned into a big failure after Trump refused to take any follow up questions after he accused CNN of being fake news and tried to bully CNN reporter Jim Acosta for asking appropriate follow up questions to such an outrageous public accusation.
This accusation of “fake news” is Trump’s way of denying reality, and it must not be allowed to stand. I wrote about this in the Huffington Post in early December, warning that all of this “fake news” hysteria was going to give Donald Trump the cover he desperately needs to deny reality. A hoax is a hoax, a conspiracy is a conspiracy, fake news sites covering fictional events for political purposes are fake, but credible reports that are credible enough that they are being verified are not fake news. Opinions and analysis Trump doesn’t like are not fake news.
Who is to blame for Donald Trump’s disastrous “press conference” Wednesday? Um, that would be CNN, according to Trump.
It’s not Trump’s fault that he held a press conference with his staff there to applaud his fragile ego into full on puffer status, or that he avoided the Russia compromise question, or that his baloney about not having any conflicts of interest as president didn’t fly any better than his empty show folder props. No, this is all CNN’s fault. Because they did their job. Bad CNN.
CNN is not in a total meltdown. The only person in a total meltdown with bad ratings is actually the President-elect, whose approval ratings have plunged to a historic low just days before he even takes office.
Donald Trump is desperately trying to bully the press into only giving him positive coverage. During his press conference he heaped praise on those who did so while attacking CNN and Buzzfeed, in a rather crude attempt at divide and conquer. This is only the beginning of Trump’s attempts to silence the fourth estate, he’s not even in office yet.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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