‘FAKE NEWS!’ — Donald Trump Challenges CNN for ‘Phony Stories’

CAMBRIDGE, MA - DECEMBER 01: Jake Tapper, of CNN's State of the Union, speaks to a c
Scott Eisen/Getty
Charlie Spiering

President Donald Trump took a shot at CNN on Tuesday, highlighting their decision to retract a story about the ongoing Russian investigation.

“Wow, CNN had to retract big story on ‘Russia,’ with 3 employees forced to resign,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning. “What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS!”

The president floated the possibility that CNN was looking at “big management changes” after the scandal.

“Fake News CNN is looking at big management changes now that they got caught falsely pushing their phony Russian stories, he wrote. “Ratings way down!”

The president’s message proves that he is closely watching the scandal surrounding the network’s decision to publish a news story falsely accusing Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci of meeting with the chief executive of a Russian investment fund.

The story was deleted before an editor’s note from CNN stated that “the story did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted” and an apology was issued to Scaramucci.

Scaramucci accepted the apology on Twitter. “CNN did the right thing. Classy move. Apology accepted. Everyone makes mistakes. Moving on,” he wrote.

Three CNN employees resigned after the scandal, as a leaked memo showed that CNNMoney Executive Editor Rich Barbieri ordered all Russia related stories to be cleared by two high ranking people in the company.

“No one should publish any content involving Russia without coming to me and Jason [Farkas],” he wrote in a memo. “This applied to social, video, editorial, and MoneyStream. No exceptions. I will lay out a workflow Monday.”

Later the president re-tweeted a graphic mocking CNN for fake news.

 

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