CNN cancelled a scheduled interview Monday evening with Marco Rubio’s communications director, a move that comes as the cable news network continues to defend a report claiming the Florida senator’s inner circle has been thrown into chaos.
“I was in the car en route to CNN when they called to say that the segment was canceled,” Alex Conant told the Washington Examiner’s media desk.
He said he was scheduled for an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, which would have made it his second CNN appearance that evening.
Conant was on the network earlier Monday afternoon to dispute a report alleging that members of Rubio’s inner circle have been encouraging the senator to drop out of the 2016 GOP primary.
“[It’s] utter nonsense,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, adding that the report is “100 percent false.”
The story, authored by CNN’s Jamie Gangel and Tal Kopan, cites several allegedly well-placed sources in the Rubio campaign, as well as people “familiar with the discussions.”
“A battle is being waged within Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign about whether he should even remain in the Republican presidential race ahead of his home state primary on March 15, sources say,” the report states.
“Rubio himself is ‘bullish’ on his odds of winning the critical primary, despite some advisers who are less hopeful and believe a loss there would damage him politically in both the short- and long-term,” it added.
“Publicly, the campaign is maintaining they are still a contender in this race, touting a Sunday win in Puerto Rico’s primary that delivered Rubio 23 delegates. But privately, the campaign is having a debate about whether he should remain in the mix — even for his home state of Florida’s primary.”
Rubio’s team called the story a complete fabrication, and maintained the senator has high hopes for his home state. Conant also claimed in his interview with Blitzer that no one from CNN contacted Rubio’s campaign prior to the report’s publication.
Shortly after Conant’s appearance on the cable news network, Gangel was brought back on to defend her work.
Though the online version of her report cites several nameless tipsters, including some who are supposedly in the Rubio campaign, Gangel seemed to suggest during her defense Monday evening that the story is based entirely on a single anonymous source.
Regarding the cancellation of his interview with Anderson Cooper, Conant said it was abrupt.
“They just said that they wouldn’t be talking about the story on Anderson’s show,” he told the Examiner.
Cooper didn’t focus on the Rubio story specifically Monday evening, but he did mention it in passing as he and a panel of contributors discussed the 2016 GOP primary.
“There was an earlier report saying that [Rubio was backing down in Florida ] – his campaign has pushed back hard on that, and said, ‘That’s absolute bunk. There’s no evidence of it,'” the cable news host. “It wouldn’t make any sense, as far as I’m concerned, for him to, I mean, he has come this far … to not carry it through in Florida?”
The network is standing by Gangel’s story, despite that even some of the network’s anchors doubt its central claim.
“CNN had multiple sources on this reporting, and we stand by it 100 percent,” a spokesperson told the Examiner.
Network officials declined to comment when asked to explain why Conant’s interview was canceled. They also ignored requests for comment regarding the seeming discrepancy between the number of anonymous sources cited by Gangel.
