Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” host Sean Hannity continued his criticism of CNN for promoting what he called “fake news,” specifically reports tying President Donald Trump to Russia.
Hannity’s comments come on the heels of the resignations of three CNN journalists behind an article connecting Trump associate Anthony Scarmucci to a Russian investment fund that CNN was forced to retract and a Project Veritas video showing a CNN producer revealing the emphasis on Trump-Russia stories are for ratings.
Transcript as follows:
The Clinton news network is now unraveling before your eyes. It is now being exposed for what it really is, fake news, anti-Trump propaganda and a political smear machine. And that’s tonight’s “Opening Monologue.”
All right, the Clinton news network, which is constantly competing with NBC News to be the most anti-Trump news outlet in the country, is under fire yet again, once again pushing fake news. Now, three employees supposedly resigned last night after the network had to retract a completely false story about a Trump ally, friend of mine, Anthony Scaramucci, claiming that he was investigated for colluding with the Russians through dealings with a Russian investment fund.
Now, President Trump rightly slammed CNN once again and the rest of the destroy Trump media on Twitter today, writing, quote, “Fake news, CNN is looking at big management changes now that they got caught falsely pushing their phony Russia stories and ratings are way down.” The president continued, “So they caught fake news CNN cold, but what about NBC, CBS, ABC? What about the failing New York Times and Washington Post? They’re all fake news.”
Now, CNN is claiming that the only reason this hit-piece article was published was because, quote, “standard editorial processes were not followed.” Now, CNN may want to review those so-called editorial processes that they have because they’ve been forced to now retract several other fake news stories — in other words, lies to the American people — in just the past month alone.
For example, on June 16th, CNN — well, they had to delete a tweet and issue a correction for claiming that only Democrats were praying before the congressional baseball game. I was there. Not true. And just before, one day, one day before that, CNN senior White House correspondent, the very angry Jim Acosta, tweeted and then had to remove fake news about President Trump not visiting Congressman Steve Scalise in the hospital.
Of course, that’s not all. Earlier this month, before the former FBI director James Comey’s congressional testimony, well, CNN had to again change a story that falsely stated that Comey would contradict President Trump’s statements about not being under investigation by the FBI.
Now, all that appears to just be the beginning of the network’s problems because today, James O’Keefe, Project Veritas — well, they came out with a new video that apparently shows a CNN producer admitting the network’s massive anti-Trump agenda. Now, FOX News has not been able to independently verify the content of the video. But here are some of the key parts. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is CNN constantly, like, Russia this, Russia that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because it’s ratings.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It’s ratings?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our ratings are incredible right now. My boss a couple days — yesterday, we were having a discussion about (INAUDIBLE) He goes, he’s like, I just want you to know what we’re up against here. And he goes, Just to give you some context, President Trump pulled out of the climate accords, and for a day-and-a-half, we covered the climate accords, and the CEO of CNN said in our internal meeting, he said, Good job, everybody, covering the climate accords. But we’re done with that, let’s get back to Russia.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The CEO?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my God!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So — so even the climate accords, he was, like, OK, a day or so, but we’re moving back to Russia.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think (INAUDIBLE) like, liberal CNN viewers who want to see Trump really get scrutinized. And I think if we would have behaved that way with President Obama, and scrutinized everything that he was doing, which was much needed, as we apply to Donald Trump, I think our viewers would have been turned off.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But honestly, you think the whole Russia (EXPLETIVE DELETED) is just like (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It’s mostly (EXPLETIVE DELETED) right now. Like, we don’t have any giant proof that — then he said, Well, there’s still an investigation going on. And they’re, like, yes! (INAUDIBLE) if you’re finding something new, we’d know about it. The way these leaks happen (INAUDIBLE) they leak. If it was something really good, it would be — so I think the president is probably right to say, like, Look, you are witch hunting. Like, you have no smoking gun. You have no real proof.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: Now, in response to this very damning video, CNN issued a short statement. It read, in part, quote, “CNN stands by our medical producer. Diversity of personal opinion is what makes CNN strong. We welcome it. We embrace it.”
I’m actually glad this producer will not be losing his job simply for being honest and truthful. But here’s what is so ridiculous about that statement. CNN didn’t address, didn’t even bother to react to the network president, Jeff Zucker’s, comments about, quote, “getting back to Russia” and using the false Russia collusion conspiracy theory to drive up ratings for money. And by the way, the blame on all of this should be at the feet of Jeff Zucker. And if anyone faces consequences here, it should be Zucker. As we have explained, Zucker is the person who is overseeing and steering CNN and the destroy Trump fake news coverage over there.
And here’s the funny part. Take a look at this headline from earlier this month. Jeff Zucker, viewers trust CNN more than ever. Only someone like Zucker who leads a fake news network that constantly pushes conspiracy theories and fake news — you know, it’s bizarre he’d try to make that claim.
CNN has now gone overboard. They’ve jumped the shark. They’re completely biased. And by the way, they are now one of the preeminent pushers of the fake news propaganda in the country today. They have an agenda, take down the president.
Look at a recent Harvard study, of all places. From January 20 until the end of April, 93 percent — a whopping 93 percent! — of CNN’s coverage of President Trump was negative. Now, I said last night on Twitter that I think Zucker — he needs to face the consequences. He is a left-wing ideologue. He doesn’t care about facts or truth or getting any stories right. He is a Trump-hating political operative who’s pretending to be the president of an unbiased news network!
Well, with all due respect, as you know, Zucker and CNN are not alone. Now, the mainstream destroy Trump media so-called journalists — there’s a ton of them. And here’s more proof, by the way, of exactly what we’ve been exposing.
Our friends over at Media Research and their center have put together this chart analyzing ABC, NBC, CBS and their newscasts for over a month. What did the MRC find? Well, that the newscasts have a clear obsession over Trump, Russia, Comey and the investigation despite, of course, no evidence so far of any actual wrongdoing.
Now, instead of obsessing over fake news, Russia collusion, conspiracy theories, black helicopter theories, the destroy Trump media should be focusing on real scandals that they have been ignoring for months.
We have been covering them. Here are the top six. James Comey, remember, had his friend leak the memo to The New York Times to bring about a special counsel. Now, Comey may have committed a crime by unlawfully removing FBI property, which could be a violation of the Federal Records Act.
And according to Judicial Watch, by the way, Loretta Lynch — look at her, obstructing justice. Bipartisan group of senators — now they’re calling for an investigation into this. Why isn’t the media? Remember, Lynch told Comey to call the Clinton e-mail investigation a “matter.” By the way, Clinton talking points. And we also know that Lynch met Bill Clinton on the tarmac for 40 minutes before Comey let Hillary go free, and by the way, after saying she was extremely careless in her handling of top secret and classified information and destroying classified information.
Now, also, number three, speaking of Hillary, her e-mail server that we just described — well, that deserves an investigation and, frankly, a grand jury because, as we’ve been explaining, the original one was compromised by Comey and Lynch.
And then, of course, number four. There’s also the Clinton-Russia collusion Uranium One deal, real collusion! Hillary, secretary of state, signed off 20 percent America’s uranium going to Vladimir Putin, the foundational material for a nuclear weapon! And while people who were involved in that deal, by the way, at the same time are kicking back millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation and her husband’s doubling his speaking fees in Moscow.
Now, the only law in this case that we know was broken in this whole Russia collusion story was, of course, the unmasking and the leaking of intelligence against Lieutenant General Michael Flynn. And he’s paid a price for that. That’s a felony, a violation. That’s the Espionage Act.
And finally, number six, special counsel Mueller is inexcusable, his illegal, many conflicts of interest and investigative creep here. And of course, Mueller, best friends with Comey. Also, members of Mueller’s team. Let’s see. He picks one of Hillary’s lawyers and picks people that donated to Obama and Hillary Clinton to investigate Donald Trump? Are you serious? And one of the lawyers that represented the Clinton Foundation.
Now, those are the stories we’re helping the media hear. Those are the scandals that the media should be focused on instead of the destroying of the president. like CNN, like NBC, like the major networks, like The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor