President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, Oct. 11, 2019, before boarding Marine One for a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and then on to Louisiana for a rally. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
President Trump on Monday floated a lawsuit threat against CNN over reports that the network’s president, Jeff Zucker, launched an internal bias campaign to undermine his presidency.
In a tweet posted Monday evening, Trump said, “’Project Veritas-Obtained Undercover Videos Highlight Jeff Zucker’s (@CNN) Campaign To Destroy Trump. Videos Reveal @CNN’s BIAS!’ @TuckerCarlson @FoxNews Does this sound like a good, or even great, lawsuit?”
The president’s latest gripe with CNN comes after conservative activist group Project Veritas published undercover recordings from an alleged “whistleblower” that capture CNN employees casually confirming the network’s anti-Trump bias and show Zucker telling top news executives to focus solely on impeachment even at the expense of other important news.
A request for comment from CNN on Trump’s tweet was not immediately returned.
PROJECT VERITAS’ ALLEGED CNN WHISTLEBLOWER CLAIMS NETWORK IS ‘PUMPING OUT PROPAGANDA’
Project Veritas, whose founder, James O’Keefe, describes himself as a “guerrilla journalist” — built up the release on social media with an “#ExposeCNN” hashtag, and Monday published the first segment of what is billed as a multi-part series. The video features Cary Poarch, who claims he was a satellite uplink technician at CNN’s Washington Bureau before, he says, his “dream job” quickly turned into a nightmare due to CNN’s blatant bias.
“I don’t care about the MSNBC event, OK? I don’t care about them. Let’s just stay very focused on impeachment,” a person identified as Zucker says in the recording. “We shouldn’t just pretend, oh, this is going one way. And so all of these moves are toward impeachment.”
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Poarch allegedly recorded “several” of Zucker’s conference calls, in which he claims Zucker runs the daily meeting “with an iron fist” aimed directly at “hammering Trump” or “Republicans in general.” Poarch told O’Keefe that several high-powered CNN executives join Zucker on the daily call, including senior vice president of newsgathering Virginia Moseley and political director David Chalian.
Zucker, who began his career at NBC, rose from researcher all the way to president and CEO of NBC Universal. Along the way, he was responsible for increasing Donald Trump’s fame when he greenlighted “The Apprentice.” The duo has famously feuded since Trump’s foray into politics, with the president attacking the liberal network on a regular basis and accusing CNN of unfair coverage.
Fox News’ Brian Flood contributed to this report
