Even after two leading liberal media outlets reported last week that a major media talking point on the Russia investigation was actually false, CNN still refuses to believe it.
Thursday morning, several CNN journalists and even one MSNBC journalist pounced on Trump for asserting that “only three or four” intelligence agencies actually concluded that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. Ever skeptical of anything Trump says, the journalists didn’t even bother to see if Trump was right before they called him out for it.
If they had done even the most minimal of research, they would’ve seen that Trump was only citing media reports from the New York Times and AP. Last week both media outlets quietly backtracked from what they had reported for months on end, that “17” intelligence agencies had contributed to a report saying that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election.
During a live report from Warsaw on New Day Thursday morning, CNN’s Jim Acosta mocked Trump for repeating the Times’ report, unwittingly calling it “fake news:”
The other thing that was fake news coming from President Trump, was when he said, ‘I keep hearing it's 17 intelligence agencies that say Russia meddled in the election. I think it's only three or four.’ Where does that number come from? Where is this three or four number come from? My suspicion is if we go to the administration and ask for this question, I'm not sure we're going to get an answer. If we do get an answer, it will probably be off-camera.
Other CNN journalists tried to shame Trump over this statement as well. In the first hour of New Day, Sara Murray lectured:
“Whether President Trump is inclined to accept it over not, 17 U.S. Intelligence agencies did conclude that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election.”
At least Murray responded on Twitter that her critics “were right,” something Acosta failed to do
In response to many of you – yes, you are right that Clapper clarified not all 17 intel agencies contributed to that Russia report
— Sara Murray (@SaraMurray) July 6, 2017
MSNBC’s Katy Tur also tried to get in on the Trump bashing, tweeting out a list of all 17 of the intelligence agencies with a heads up to Trump . Sometime afterwards Tur deleted her tweet, but some users saved the screenshot:
Gone but not forgotten pic.twitter.com/YtBb8zlw6M
— Chris L (@CML_Texas) July 6, 2017
By this logic: DNI, FBI, CIA & NSA aren't enough. Let's get DEA's take on Russia meddling. Then Coast Guard. & Energy. Cc @MCShort45 https://t.co/vo3DyKVABx
— Evan Pérez (@evanperez) July 6, 2017
While this may be true, CNN and the rest of the media bolstered their own credibility by touting this massive number, which turns out to be only a fraction of that. It’s hard to take your news network seriously when they repeatedly tout false information based off of anonymous sources, and then refuse to own up to it when it’s shown to be false.
