Top White House aide Sebastian Gorka got into a contentious, fiery argument with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper on Wednesday, deriding that it’s “sad to see CNN fall to this.” To Cooper’s face, he challenged, “I know you want salacious, sensational coverage for your ratings, so your corporate sponsors and owners will have... more money. But that's not media. That's not reportage. It's just fake news.”
The two sparred over the use of unnamed sources. The deputy assistant to the President reminded Cooper that CNN used these “sources” before former FBI head James Comey was to testify before Congress:
SEBASTIAN GORKA: Is that the same way that all the unnamed sources said that Director Comey, including CNN, was going to completely gainsay everything the President said about their meeting 24 hours before his testimony in which CNN —
COOPER: That was a reporting that was wrong, and we corrected ourselves, unlike the White House which has never corrected itself on anything.
Gorka also pressed the anchor on CNN’s lack of interest into whether Democrats worked with the government of Ukraine to dig up dirt on Trump:
On the contrary, the DNC sends its operative onto the soil of a foreign nation, to the embassy of the Ukraine, not to collect dirt, but to actually use it in a coordinated campaign with a foreign government. That's what CNN should be covering. But why aren't you?
In a later segment, a ticked off Cooper mocked Gorka as “the Hungarian Don Rickles.”
A partial transcript of the segment is below:
Anderson Cooper 360
7/12/17
8:07pm ETANDERSON COOPER: We're very pleased we have somebody from the White House on the broadcast tonight. Deputy assistant to the president, Sebastian Gorka, joins us now. Mr. Gorka, thanks very much for being with us. I want to ask you about a number of things. The president's trip to France is very important, also the victory in Iraq and Mosul. I do want to start off with what Dana and others are reporting. The president has had four days now without an event on his public schedule. You heard the reporting that there is a bunker mode in parts of the White House since the news of Donald Trump Jr. broke. I want you to be able to comment on that.
SEBASTIAN GORKA: Oh, absolutely. It's laughable. Your Chyron talked about a crisis. Your reporter talked about a bunker mentality. I actually work in the West Wing. I work in the White House. It is absolutely nothing of the kind. We are pushing the make America great again agenda. The president is a steam locomotive that will not be stopped. It's just fake news.
I'm sad to see CNN fall to this. I know you want salacious, sensational coverage for your ratings, so your corporate sponsors and owners will have, you know, more money. But that's not media. That's not reportage. It's just fake news.
COOPER: OK. I'm just going to ignore the insults, because I don't think it really gets us anywhere. Again —
GORKA: It's not about you, but having journalism back on TV. Where are the Walter Cronkites of yesteryear? This is just about ratings and money. It's a bit — it's actually quite sad.
COOPER: So, the president tweeted today, when you hear the words, sources say from the fake media, often times those sources are made up and do not exist. I'm wondering how the president can actually make that claim when all the reporting about The New York Times and the meeting his son held with the Russian attorney had been proven by his son's own e-mails, which he only released after The Times is going to publish the contents of it?
GORKA: Is that the same way that all the unnamed sources said that Director Comey, including CNN, was going to completely gainsay everything the President said about their meeting 24 hours before his testimony in which CNN —
COOPER: That was a reporting that was wrong, and we corrected ourselves, unlike the White House which has never corrected itself on anything. But I'm giving you an opportunity right now to correct what the president said this morning, because what he's alleging is that the reporting is fake, and in fact, his son's own e-mail chain shows that it's accurate. Do you deny that?
GORKA: No. I deny the fact that there's anything here that's untoward. This is, again, this is an obsessive, nine month.
COOPER: Ok, but you do not deny –– you do not deny that all the sourcings for "The New York Times" was correct on this story and the president is wrong when he's saying the anonymous source saying is fake news?
GORKA: Oh, I stand by what the President said and I stand by what his son said. We are incredibly impressed by Don Jr.'s transparency and the fact that he published these e-mails and said he will cooperate with anybody.
COOPER: But let's be honest here, though. He only published these emails because the New York Times got the emails and was going to publish them, and then he smartly got ahead of it, and the only reason that this story has lasted so long is because he wasn't transparent from the beginning. Even Trey Gowdy today has said, and I quote, if you had a contact with Russia, tell the special counsel about it. Don't wait for the New York Times to figure it out. Why not be out front and transparent on Saturday when he was first approached?
GORKA: The story only has legs because the fake news industrial complex is obsessed. Nine months of accusations with zero, zero evidence of anything illegal. On the contrary, the DNC sends its operative onto the soil of a foreign nation, to the embassy of the Ukraine, not to collect dirt, but to actually use it in a coordinated campaign with a foreign government. That's what CNN should be covering. But why aren't you?
COOPER: Okay. Well, two things on that. First of all, you're avoiding answering the question about Donald Trump's lack of transparency from the beginning.
GORKA: Total transparency.
COOPER: So with him saying that this meeting was about adoption issues, about his concerns for orphans?
GORKA: It was — it was absolutely misrepresented. The individual who requested the meeting --
COOPER: That's what he said the meeting was about on Saturday when he knew all along by Saturday that's not what the meeting was about. So, that's not being transparent, right?
GORKA: When he gave as much information as was necessary to be put out there after the --
COOPER: It wasn't correct information.
GORKA: It was. Absolutely.
COOPER: This meeting was about adoption, about orphans?
GORKA: All of it was true. All of it was true.
COOPER: This meeting was about adoption?
GORKA: Did somebody wanted to provide negative information that at the end of the meeting —
COOPER: He didn't say that.
GORKA: — it was under false pretenses. That ended up being about --
COOPER: He didn't say that.
GORKA: -- about adoption. And that -- do you really want to talk -- I thought we were going to talk about real issues, like what we're doing with our allies in France.
COOPER: I am going to ask you, but you're not being honest. You're not being up front.
GORKA: Anderson, how many minutes are we in?
COOPER: Are you a TV producer now? You're concerned about how minutes we’ve been talking? Do you have somewhere else to go? If you gotta go, you gotta go.
GORKA: You're falling into the fake news trap again. And this is sad, Anderson.
COOPER: Okay. I mean, you're like shining -- it looks like you're shaking shiny objects trying to divert people, but I don't think viewers are really that --
GORKA: You know why the president's description of a witch hunt is accurate? Because there never were witches and there never was any collusion. It's bogus. The DNC —
COOPER: You're claiming that Donald Trump, Jr. was transparent from the get-go?
GORKA: Donald Trump, Jr. is transparent, absolutely.
COOPER: He didn't just release his e-mails.
GORKA: Anderson, you're like a broken record.
COOPER: No, because I'm not getting any answers from you.
GORKA: I'm answering you every time.
COOPER: No, you're responding. You're actually not answering because you're not actually being up front.
GORKA: Let's let the viewers judge who decided that you're now the 13th place in national ratings, behind Nick at Nite which is at 11th.
COOPER: You used that line on Monday.
GORKA: Yes.
COOPER: And, you know, it was sort of mildly amusing on Monday.
(CROSSTALK)
GORKA: Yes. Tucker Carlson got four million viewers. You barely scratched 200,000.
COOPER: But I think it's funny that you have enough time at the White House, which is apparently you're so busy, you're able to sit around and read Nielsen numbers.
GORKA: No, I got a really good prep from my team because the White House press team is superb.
COOPER: Okay.
GORKA: I don't deal with this stuff, because I do have a day job.
