President Trump accused CNN of losing all “credibility” Thursday, escalating his critique of the news outlet standing by its Trump Tower meeting exclusive even after Lanny Davis, who is representing Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, cast doubt on its accuracy.
“CNN is working frantically to find their ‘source.’ Look hard because it doesn’t exist,” Trump tweeted in the afternoon. “Whatever was left of CNN’s credibility is now gone!”
[Opinion: CNN’s Trump Tower scoop is falling apart]
CNN is working frantically to find their “source.” Look hard because it doesn’t exist. Whatever was left of CNN’s credibility is now gone!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2018
The tweet comes after Trump blasted one of the authors of the report — Carl Bernstein, the veteran journalist who helped uncover the Watergate scandal.
“CNN is being torn apart from within based on their being caught in a major lie and refusing to admit the mistake,” Trump tweeted Wednesday evening. “Sloppy @carlbernstein, a man who lives in the past and thinks like a degenerate fool, making up story after story, is being laughed at all over the country! Fake News.”
[CNN: ‘Make no mistake’ Trump, ‘CNN does not lie’]
The report in question claimed that Cohen was ready to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that Donald Trump Jr. alerted his father of the June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer before it occurred. The report directly contradicted Trump’s denial that he knew of the meeting in advance.
The report cites anonymous sources, and states that Davis declined to comment. But the report has come under fire after Davis revealed to BuzzFeed News on Monday that he was indeed a source for the report.
Davis has also gone on the record with other outlets to say he was their confirming source in follow-ups to CNN’s report and apologized.
Davis also confessed to misleading viewers on CNN last week when he told host Anderson Cooper he was not a source in the CNN report. “I think the reporting of the story got mixed up in the course of a criminal investigation,” Davis told Cooper. “We were not the source of the story.”
Davis told BuzzFeed this was inaccurate and he was an anonymous source in the CNN article.
CNN continues to stand by the report, with a spokesperson saying that they are “confident in our reporting of it.” Bernstein too shot back at Trump’s “taunt,” saying he stands by his reporting.
The CNN report had three authors: Bernstein, CNN’s chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto, and CNN researcher and producer Marshall Cohen.
Trump routinely denounces the media and has labeled outlets such as CNN as “fake news.” He accused CNN earlier in the day Thursday of being the “Enemy of the People.”
