CNN Fake News: White House Correspondent Fires Back at President Donald Trump on Reputation Regarding Fake News
The senior White House Correspondent of the Cable News Network (CNN,) Jim Acosta, fired back at President Donald J. Trump after he and his administration targeted the network for their allegedly misinformed article about Russia's influence on the country.
CNN wrote a report claiming that the Senate Intelligence Committee had Anthony Scaramucci – a former executive of Goldman Sachs and key member of Trump's transition team – under investigation for a meeting he had with Kirill Dmitriev, an executive from the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) during the president's transition.
The author of the report, Thomas Frank, along with editor Eric Lichtblau and editor-in-chief of "CNN Investigates" Lex Haris, have resigned from the network, the Washington Post reported.
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CNN has already retracted the report, but Trump and his administration are still reacting to the incident.
In a post on Twitter, President Trump slammed the network for reporting fake news.
"Wow, CNN had to retract big story on 'Russia,' with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS!" the post reads.
Meanwhile, Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders launched the first televised briefing for the week where she slammed the press for their misinformed reports about the Trump administration, Business Insider reported.
"News outlets get to go on day after day and cite unnamed sources, use stories without sources. You mentioned the [CNN] story, where they had to have reporters resign," Sanders said.
However, Brian Karem – reporter for the Sentinel newspapers – fired back at Sanders's statement.
"You're inflaming everybody right here, right now, with those words," Karem said, while adding that even the administration has gotten facts wrong before.
This is when Acosta went on television to speak against the president by proving that he advertises fake news.
Acosta said on CNN, "The president of the United States is also a purveyor of fake news. He is the founding father of birtherism."
He went on to say that Trump and his staff spread a series of debunked news stories while "PRESIDENTIAL FAKE NEWS" was showing on the CNN display.
One of the fake news stories that Trump claimed was true was that the people that attended his inauguration were a bigger crowd compared to former President Barack Obama's. However, CNN had photos to prove he was wrong.
Acosta said that the reason Trump has only held one full news conference since the start of his term is because he is avoiding being on the spotlight.
"It's because if he holds a news conference, we're going to ask all of these questions. He just is not going to have answers for any of that and that is why he's been avoiding these types of questions," Acosta said.
