CNN TORCHED for Sickening Article Gushing Over Islamists With IEDs ‘Enjoying the City’

CNN was thrown through the proverbial wood chipper on Tuesday morning for an absurd post on X that openly fawned over two alleged ISIS-inspired Islamic terrorists — who are charged with having brought multiple improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to a New York City protest Saturday afternoon — as merely “[t]wo Pennsylvania teenagers” looking to bask in “the city during abnormally warm weather.”

Following a few hours of ridicule, CNN deleted the post that fretted the lives of the teens “would drastically change” as they would end the day in prison that had started out as “a normal day enjoying the city” outside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdai’s home, Gracie Mansion.

CNN cried uncle shortly after 9:30 a.m. Eastern:

To his credit, CNN’s Brian Stelter admitted in his Reliable Sources newsletter that “CNN was rightly criticized this morning for a post on X[.]”

However, Stelter insisted it was just the tweet that “was outrageous” because “[t]he story itself was solid” and CNN “quickly addressed” the uproar.

Fact-check: Pants on fire, Brian.

Our buddy Jerry Dunleavy with Just the News blasted Stelter with a reality check that the deleted tweet was also the lede of the article by Gloria Pazmino and Taylor Romine (who uses they/them pronouns), but had been changed without notice (more on that in a bit):

Dunleavy had plenty of back-up, ranging from Daily Wire editor-in-chief Brent Scher to White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson, who wrote: “CNN defends their egregious tweet by saying ‘the story itself was solid.’ But Google indicates the story lede was the same as the tweet before it was seemingly edited.”

MRC Bulldog Award winner Drew Holden showed the replacement lede wasn’t much better:

Two Pennsylvania men on Saturday followed the route taken by thousands as they crossed the George Washington Bridge into New York City. But less than an hour later, their trajectory took a dark turn as they were arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home.

Only then in paragraph two did they admit “Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, were charged Monday with providing material support to a terrorist organization and using a weapon of mass destruction, among other charges, after they threw two improvised explosive devices, also known as IEDs...according to a criminal complaint[.]”

Sure enough, after further outcry, CNN finally attached an editor’s note to the article and rewrote the first two paragraphs for a third time.

First, the editor’s note read: “A previous version of this story included a summary that does not reflect the gravity of the incident, thereby breaching the editorial standards we require for all our reporting. It therefore has been changed.”

Then, the lede was significantly watered down:

Investigators are digging deeper into the backgrounds of two terror suspects accused of tossing makeshift bombs at a protest outside the New York City mayor’s home in what authorities describe as an ISIS-inspired attack over the weekend.

Emir Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, both of Pennsylvania, are accused of trying to use improvised explosive devices at an anti-Islam demonstration and a counterprotest near Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home Saturday. No device exploded.

Reacting to the original X post, Holden tweeted: “Legacy media once again needs a reminder not to glorify terrorists. ‘Could have been a normal day enjoying the city,’ is accurate but for the considerable fact that they came with bombs they intended to throw at a protest.”

Fellow MRC Bulldog Award winner Erick Erickson blasted out a screenshot of Romine’s Linkedin page, sarcastically tweeting: “This is the lead ‘reporter’ of that ridiculous CNN story.  You will not be surprised to learn she uses ‘they/them’ pronouns and graduated from Columbia's journalism program.”

“My trajectory always takes a dark turn when I make and carry homemade bombs to a protest to kill people. It's the darnedest thing. Like, help me out, trajectory,” tweeted the great Mary Katharine Ham with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

Washington Examiner senior writer David Harsanyi had an interesting observation about CNN’s treatment of these alleged terrorists: “CNN treating Islamic terrorists better than they did Nick Sandmann.”

National Review senior editor Charles C.W. Cooke — who’s written more than a few exquisite takedowns of the liberal, elite media in the Trump era — had this intriguing observation:

Like Ham, Cooke dialed up some sarcasm of his own in a follow-up tweet, parodying how these two might have written an article on 9/11 about the hijackers: “Nineteen Middle Eastern tourists crossed into New York City Tuesday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally sunny weather . . .”