Trump slams CNN as "fake news" following Russia story retraction
President Trump took to Twitter Tuesday morning to rail against frequent foe CNN after three staffers resigned after their reporting on a Trump associate's financial ties to Russia was retracted by the network.
"Wow, CNN had to retract big story on 'Russia', with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS!," Mr. Trump tweeted.
Wow, CNN had to retract big story on "Russia," with 3 employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do? FAKE NEWS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2017
Shortly after, Mr. Trump tweeted again about "fake news CNN", claiming they are now looking at "big management changes" following the retraction, and that network's ratings are "way down."
Fake News CNN is looking at big management changes now that they got caught falsely pushing their phony Russian stories. Ratings way down!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2017
Mr. Trump spent much of the remainder of the morning retweeting stories by Fox News hitting on Democrats, as well as a tweet showing a graphic of CNN's logo, changed to read "FNN" or "Fake News Network."
CNN accepted the resignations of three of their journalists on Monday that were involved in the retracted story posted on the network's website.
The story alleged that the Senate Intelligence Committee was looking into a January 16 discussion between presidential adviser Anthony Scaramucci and Kirill Dmitirev, whose Russian Direct Fund guides investments by U.S. entities in Russia.
CNN executives said the story did not meet the network's editorial standards and offered an apology to Scaramucci, which was promptly accepted.
.@CNN did the right thing. Classy move. Apology accepted. Everyone makes mistakes. Moving on. https://t.co/lyVajCKNHx
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) June 24, 2017
Mr. Trump spent much of the 2016 presidential campaign and subsequent days in the Oval Office deriding CNN reports as "fake news."