White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Monday said she would have fired ABC’s Brian Ross if he made the kind of error he made last week, when he said former national security adviser Michael Flynn made contact with the Russians when Donald Trump was still just a candidate for president.
After Ross’s story tanked the stock market, ABC first issued a clarification and then a full correction to the story, and suspended him for four weeks without pay.
“If Brian Ross worked for me, and I was a private employer for many years, it would not be four weeks of unpaid suspension for a guy making seven figures to lie on the air,” Conway told Fox Business Network Monday morning. “It would be complete termination because, just hypothetically speaking, because he did move markets, not because he’s Brian Ross, but because he was talking about President Trump, who’s the market mover here.”
.@KellyannePolls: “If Brian Ross worked for me… it would not be 4 weeks of unpaid suspension for a guy making 7 figures to lie on the air, it would be complete termination.” pic.twitter.com/WGVxn4qj0Y— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) December 4, 2017
ABC’s “correction” finally acknowledged that Flynn’s contacts with Russia happened during the transition period when these types of foreign contacts are standard.
Over the weekend, Trump tweeted that people who lost money due to the drop should sue Ross for his flawed reporting.
“People who lost money when the Stock Market went down 350 points based on the False and Dishonest reporting of Brian Ross of @ABC News (he has been suspended), should consider hiring a lawyer and suing ABC for the damages this bad reporting has caused – many millions of dollars!” Trump tweeted Sunday.
