The View’s Meghan McCain peppered CNN’s Brian Stelter about a series of questionable ethical decisions made by CNN employees that have recently come to light.
McCain, the lone conservative co-host on the daytime show, asked Stelter during a Wednesday interview on The View about the tapes of conversations between former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and CNN staffers, and she asked about the reports that Jake Tapper tried to influence a House race. Stelter was on the show to promote his book, Hoax, which focuses on the relationship between Trump and Fox News.
“There are some ethical questions that are being thrown around about CNN lately. There’s a 2016 audio of your president, Jeff Zucker, offering debate advice to President Trump that was released. Jake Tapper was recently caught trying to allegedly influence a congressional election. And I have serious problems with the way Chris Cuomo had a reoccurring prime-time sort of comic routine with his brother instead of asking about policies that were literally sending my friend Janice Dean’s older relatives to die in nursing homes,” McCain, who previously worked at Fox News, said. “So with the criticism of CNN, do you believe that this is acceptable, and don’t you think there’s enough fair criticism to go all the way around right now in just how news networks are run?”
Stelter, in response, said that some of the criticisms were “cherry-picked” and noted that he’s not a spokesperson for the network.
“Well, first, I think you should write a book,” Stelter said. “You’ve listed off all of these story lines. A lot of them, though, are cherry-picked. You know, coming from these audiotapes that Tucker Carlson’s been airing. And I do have a question about this that relates to my book. Michael Cohen says these audiotapes were only held by Trump, the Trump Organization, and the [Department of Justice]. So, all of a sudden, they’re airing on Fox News. You have to wonder if this an example of this feedback loop that exists between Trump and Fox. But look, I’m not a spokesperson … for CNN or Fox.”
The Reliable Sources host concluded by noting that it’s not his place to “comment on these tapes.”
Over the past couple weeks, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson has aired previously unpublished audio recordings of Cohen with both CNN president Jeff Zucker and prominent prime-time host Chris Cuomo. Zucker was recorded providing Cohen with advice on how Trump should react to criticisms and attacks from other GOP presidential nominees during the 2016 primaries. In the clip of Cohen and Cuomo talking to one another, the host attempted to help strategize ways to avoid discussing the alleged hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Tapper, who is from Pennsylvania, was accused of inappropriately contacting a congressional candidate when he allegedly tried to encourage Sean Parnell, a U.S. Army combat veteran who’s running for Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District against the Democratic incumbent Conor Lamb, to run in a different district.
