President Trump called Jake Tapper a “flunky” on Sunday after the CNN anchor’s heated interview with White House adviser Stephen Miller.
Trump responded on Twitter: “Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration. Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!”
Tapper and Miller battled during a live interview on Tapper’s weekly show, “State of the Union,” about allegations made in a new book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.”
Miller took jabs at CNN during the tense exchange, leading Tapper to abruptly cut off the interview.
“Your network has been going 24-7 with all of the salacious coverage, and I know that it brings a lot of you guys a lot of joy to try to stick the knife in,” Miller said of CNN’s coverage of “Fire and Fury,” which was written by Michael Wolff. (RELATED: Stephen Miller Slams CNN In Interview With Jake Tapper)
Tapper denied that anyone at CNN was “trying to stick knives” into Trump.
Miller later listed several recent reporting errors by CNN, including a report last month that Donald Trump Jr. received an email about stolen Democratic emails during the 2016 presidential campaign. CNN reported that Trump Jr. was sent the email on Sept. 4, 2016, days before a trove of stolen emails were publicly released.
It was later revealed that the email was sent to Trump Jr. on Sept. 14, 2016, a day after those emails were made public. CNN declined to reprimand the reporters who published the story and has refused to explain how it got the story so wrong or to identify the sources of the erroneous information used in the article. (RELATED: CNN Botches Major Don Jr. ‘Bombshell’)
“That was a huge embarrassment for your network,” Miller said of the incident.
The exchange between Miller and Tapper degraded from there.
Miller accused Tapper of being “condescending” and failing to ask questions about policy. Tapper said that Miller was dodging his questions and performing for “an audience of one” — Trump.
“You’re not answering the questions,” said Tapper, adding, “I think I’ve wasted enough of my viewers’ time” before cutting to commercial.
Tapper responded to Trump’s tweet by linking to a clip of his interview with Miller.