All posts tagged "cnn"

Nick Fuentes turns on his fans after CNN segment — and his followers sent death threats

Right-wing influencer Nick Fuentes mocked his followers after they were interviewed for a CNN segment, the network reported on Friday.

CNN senior correspondent Donie O'Sullivan interviewed two men in Miami named Rich and John, who are Groypers — young, white men who are followers of white supremacist Fuentes.

"These men have come to see themselves in Nick Fuentes," O'Sullivan said. "His cancellation across social media platforms for his spreading of hate they view as part of a broader attack on men like them."

John, a 25-year-old Groyper, described what drew him to Fuentes.

"And you look at his audience, they feel like they can relate to him because they're young men," John told O'Sullivan. "A lot of them can't get girlfriends. A lot of them are struggling financially. They're not going to have the life their parents had. Their grandparents had."

But after the interview, things changed.

"Soon after I left Miami pictures, John posted of our interview on social media, got Fuentes' attention and he wasn't happy. His followers had spoken to CNN," O'Sullivan said.

Fuentes talked about it.

"How about that CNN thing? Oh my gosh, these like two absolute chuds who look at us. 'We're in our Nick Fuentes t-shirt and hat,'" Fuentes said about his followers featured in the interview.

Then Rich and John started getting attacked online.

"In online audio chats, Groypers began to turn on Rich and John," O'Sullivan said.

And John tried to defend his "Groypers honor" in a 30-minute social media interview.

"I consider myself a Groyper, and I know everyone's saying I'm not a Groyper and giving me death threats and telling me to kill myself and that they're going to rape me. And that's fine. I don't really care," John said.

Trump attacks CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins for not smiling: 'Hatred in her eyes'

President Donald Trump ranted against CNN's Kaitlan Collins and attacked her during a White House press conference on Wednesday, claiming she "never smiles."

Trump was criticizing Collins' network after a question about the $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund when he turned his attention to the CNN anchor.

"Some of you will believe it, like CNN will believe it, because they knew what was going on and they're crooked as hell. CNN is a very corrupt organization," he said.

Trump started to take aim at Collins, whom he has attacked during previous press events.

"She's a young, beautiful woman. Never smiles. I never see a smile off her face, I see her standing there with hatred in her eyes, like she has hatred because we have borders, because we have a strong military, because we cut our taxes, because we do things that everybody wanted and then we win our election in a massive landslide."

He said, "The reporter should be happy," describing the war in Iran as "a detour," and part of "saving our country."

CNN told Raw Story in a statement: “Kaitlan Collins is an exceptional journalist, reporting every day from the White House and the field with real depth and tenacity. She skillfully brings that reporting to the anchor chair and CNN platforms every day, which audiences around the world know they can trust.”

Trump, sounding very tired, attacks a woman reporter for not smiling more pic.twitter.com/XgeWgricev
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 3, 2026

'You can just smell the fear!' CNN analyst comes unglued at GOP pundit over Paxton's win

A CNN analyst laughed off attacks on a Texas Democrat's chances of winning a Senate seat.

Pundit Paul Begala sniffed the air as CNN conservative commentator Scott Jennings listed off the problems with Rep. James Talarico (D-TX), who will challenge Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for a Senate seat in November.

"You know what I'm smelling, Scott?" Begala said, as Jennings blasted Talarico's views on transgender identity, theology, and eating meat.

Jennings's attack on Talarico's chances in Texas irked Begala, who became stirred in his seat. Begala could smell "fear, panic, your stinking panic," he told Jennings.

"You guys fear this guy," Begala said about Talarico. "He's more popular than Trump in Texas, brother!"

Jennings demanded of Begala, "Can you explain his position?"

"You know what I'm not for?" Begala said. "I'm not for $6.89 hamburgers, okay? James actually eats beef, but he can afford to. Most Texans can't anymore."

Begala accused Paxton of becoming "a millionaire" despite having "a government salary."

"How does that happen?" Begala demanded. "He can afford a hamburger. This is what it's going to be about. You want it to be about woke. I want it to be about broke."

Jennings tried to ask Begala, "Are you a normal person?"

Begala repeated, "I can smell the fear," while waving his hands in the air as if to soak in the aroma.

Trump left the door wide open for midterms with '$100 million' mistake: GOP analyst

As results came in for the Texas GOP Senate primary, CNN analysts weighed in on what the cost will be down the line.

Veteran CNN correspondent Brian Todd said that President Donald Trump's decision to endorse Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is a "$100 million mistake." Trump chose to endorse Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), whom political pundit Alyssa Farah Griffin described as a "monster fundraiser and big contributor to Senate Republicans."

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper already pointed out that nearly $130 million has been poured into the Texas GOP primary. According to Griffin, if Paxton wins and squares off with Democrat Rep. James Talarico (D-TX), "you may be having to bail out this candidate who has tremendous vulnerabilities."

Todd, meanwhile, said that one of "Paxton's biggest weaknesses is that he's a bad fundraiser." He also said Cornyn's defeat gave Democrats a "theoretical chance" of winning in the midterms, but predicted that Republicans would retain Cornyn's seat, even though doing so could be costly.

Cooper described Talarico as a "phenomenal fundraiser."

Political commentator Van Jones agreed. "Trump has taken a big gamble tonight," but it was "a reckless gamble," he said.

"He's going to wind up flushing $200 million down the drain in Texas to pull this off," Van Jones said.

'Terrible week for Trump': GOP strategist warns MAGA lawmaker to distance himself now

A Republican strategist says that Trump is hurting politically right now and warned a GOP lawmaker who appeared with the president.

"This is a really terrible week for this Trump administration," Rina Shah said during an appearance on CNN. She added that Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) "should not have trumped" the president at a campaign event on Friday.

"Lawler has been confusing in the past many months," Shah explained. "By continuing to seem like he wants to be close to the White House," despite "his colleagues in the Senate...they're reading the room."

She brought up the fiery meeting between GOP senators and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, where they "really stood up" and chewed into him regarding the "anti-weaponization" fund, Shah said.

The midterm elections are six months away, and "it's time to get tough about what matters." The senators who ripped into Blanche "aren't in full revolt. They're just in midterm savior mode," Shah added.

"So Lawler, if he knew better, he would be doing that too," she explained. "He's employing a throw-it-all-at-the-wall strategy. He thinks that maybe Trump's charisma might win out with some folks, but again, the pocketbook issues."

She tried to send the message to Lawler that "your constituents hate endless war," but Trump is "making it all about himself."

5 things to know as DNC's long-buried 2024 autopsy leaks to CNN

CNN obtained the Democratic Party's long-private autopsy of the 2024 election on Thursday.

CNN Senior Reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere told anchors Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown how he had access to the report, saying the report was "not ready" but that over time, he had discovered more information and worked with DNC chair Ken Martin to release it. CNN opted to publish the report in full.

"The plan was not to release this report. The report was released to me after I had obtained a lot of the detail and contents in there," Dovere said.

The public version published on CNN was annotated by DNC lawyers, "undercutting a lot of what was in the report," he explained. "We are publishing the full report so people can see it and read for themselves."

Here are five things to know about the "autopsy" report.

1. The release was delayed from its original release date and prompted a number of conspiracy theories.

The report was originally set to be released in spring 2025.

"Then, DNC chair Ken Martin promised members at their summer meeting last August in his home state of Minnesota, 'Three weeks,'" Dovere said. "Then October. Then after the November elections. Then, with Martin offering no explanation other than he suddenly didn’t want to look backward, he announced he wouldn’t be releasing it at all."

Conspiracy theories were mounting in the wake of the report's delayed release.

"Martin was trying to protect Kamala Harris as she considers another presidential run, Obama campaign alumni were protecting each other, high-priced consultants were trying to keep millions in fees from being revealed, or the party was trying to hide how voters reacted to the Gaza crisis," Dovere said.

"Or one of the most widespread: Maybe the autopsy didn’t even exist at all," Dovere added.

2. The Biden White House and campaign neglected Kamala Harris and her campaign.

"The autopsy accuses the Biden administration of not doing more to boost Harris long before the president’s June 2024 debate performance forced him to withdraw, particularly on immigration given the Trump campaign tying the issue to her as the administration’s so-called 'border czar,'" Dovere said.

3. The Harris campaign was in the dark on key DNC decisions — and may have taken too much for granted.

"Martin entrusted a top priority to a friend, Democratic consultant Paul Rivera, who volunteered to work on it part-time and waited several months to contact key officials with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ campaigns," Dovere reported. "Many top decision-makers in the campaigns were ultimately never interviewed, and Harris herself has expressed frustration privately that questions about the document have gone on."

4. The report revealed both campaigns — Biden and Harris — failed to define Trump.

Republicans appeared better at messaging to voters and learning from past elections. This was identified as a pain point during the aftermath of the 2024 election.

5. Not all questions surrounding the election and what happened are included in the current report.

"It gets into things about spending decisions and organizing that was done by the DNC, ways to possibly improve it," Dovere said. "But there are a lot of things in that version that are incomplete and also, it does not touch a couple of topics a lot of people are very interested in and thought were the reasons for this report not being out. There's nothing about Joe Biden and what happened in the debate, there's nothing about Kamala Harris getting the nomination without any kind of primary process and also there's nothing about the way that voters were responding to Gaza and how the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris policies and comments about it were hitting their minds."

CNN fact-checker busts Trump over 'truly bananas' claim to reporters

A CNN fact-checker called out President Donald Trump's false claims that the presidential elections in 2016, 2020 and 2024 were "rigged" against him in a rant to reporters on Wednesday.

Trump was speaking to press at Joint Base Andrews when a reporter asked him if he saw himself in Spencer Pratt, a MAGA-backed Los Angeles mayoral candidate. The president called elections in California "dishonest," which CNN Senior Reporter Daniel Dale pointed out was false.

"If we had Jesus Christ come down and count the votes, I would've won California. Because I do great with Hispanics. But it's a rigged vote," Trump claimed.

Dale described why Trump's comments were incorrect.

"Truly bananas claim President Trump has made on multiple occasions. He lost California by 30 points in 2016 (more than 4 million votes), 29 points in 2020 (more than 5 million votes) and 20 points in 2024 (more than 3 million votes). Votes are counted accurately in every state," Dale wrote in a post on X.

Trump has repeatedly argued that elections are rigged against him, which started in his complaints about the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden. These claims have been rejected by election officials and courts, although Trump has continued making allegations about other elections and voting processes.

Truly bananas claim President Trump has made on multiple occasions. He lost California by 30 points in 2016 (more than 4 million votes), 29 points in 2020 (more than 5 million votes) and 20 points in 2024 (more than 3 million votes). Votes are counted accurately in every state. https://t.co/kDPuKobjTf
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) May 20, 2026

'Hey JD, there's the fraud': Vance trolled and mocked by rival on CNN

Kentucky Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear tore into Vice President JD Vance during a live CNN broadcast on Tuesday.

Beshear joined CNN anchor Kasie Hunt to talk about the primary election in Kentucky when he gave his real opinions of Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — taking a clear jab at the Trump administration and the cabinet leaders. Hunt asked Beshear what he thought about Vance or Rubio launching a 2028 presidential bid. Beshear slammed Vance's comment during a White House press conference that he would not rule out using money from a $1.8 billion fund to pay potential Jan. 6 rioters.

"Flat out crazy, and it's all out fraud," Beshear said. "I mean, Donald Trump made JD Vance the czar fraud. Well, there's now a 1.78, 1.7, or $1.8 billion slush fund for Donald Trump's allies. There's $1 billion ballroom that hasn't been approved. Donald Trump is buying stocks and then pumping up the companies. Hey, JD, there's the fraud. Go get it."

Hunt also asked Beshear if he thought it would be more difficult for a Democrat to face off against Vance or Rubio in a potential 2028 presidential bid. The Democrat had a few personal comments on both Trump allies.

"I think we've got to be ready for whoever it is, and we've got to be ready for them to be willing to say anything," Beshear responded. "I mean, JD Vance pretends he's from Kentucky. He's not. He's from the suburbs of Cincinnati. He made his money off talking down to the people of Appalachia. It was poverty tourism. This is a guy who changed his name multiple times and who calls his childhood his origin story."

He turned to Rubio, and what Beshear views as the secretary of state's desperate attempts to please Trump.

"Marco Rubio appears to be willing to do anything to get ahead," Beshear added. "I mean, he works for a president that called him little Marco, that insulted him over and over. And what's his response? Yes, sir. And yes, sir. So I think the American people are going to be ready regardless for real leadership, people that have the receipts of getting things done in their states, and they're going to be looking for someone that again, doesn't just swing that pendulum from one side to another, but can actually restore the stability of this country, can restore the stability of our economy and can make sure we're no longer viewed internationally as the bully on the playground — but once again, the leader of the free world."

Todd Blanche was ordered to recuse from Trump cases — before becoming DOJ head: CNN report

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was urged by the top Justice Department ethics lawyer to recuse himself from any legal cases connected to his former client, President Donald Trump, according to a new CNN report on Thursday.

Just after Blanche took on the role of deputy attorney general in March 2025, Joseph Tirrell gave Blanche and Emil Bove, his then top-deputy, "a printed PowerPoint presentation on ethics," a former senior DOJ ethics official told CNN.

This was the first time that Blanche was formally told he would need to remove himself from Trump-related cases — something that has not been reported before.

"Around the same time, the department’s top career lawyer advised that Bove potentially had a conflict of interest by being involved in firings of DOJ lawyers," CNN reported.

CNN correspondent Katelyn Polantz, who worked on the exclusive report with senior justice correspondent Evan Perez and reporter Hannah Rabinowitz, said the question over Blanche and other former Trump lawyers' involvement at the DOJ had been on her mind.

"This question has been bugging me since the moment Donald Trump won the election," Polantz said. "It became possible that Todd Blanche and other former defense attorneys of Donald Trump would be running the show."

The new reporting confirmed what Blanche had been directed to do.

"Even if it was a case that Blanche himself hadn't worked on, if it related to Trump personally as a potential witness, having some sort of an interest there," Polantz said. "Personally, it would be something that Blanche could not work on at the department. Now he's the acting attorney general. He had signed the ethics pledge after this briefing, saying that he would recuse from cases like this. But this was the first time we really have pushed the question at the Justice Department, what's he doing about cases where Trump has a personal interest?"

Blanche has not responded to the report.

"So now what the Justice Department spokespeople are saying in response to this story, we asked, what about which cases, where is he recusing? If he is, they said that Blanche is recused from many cases before the Justice Department," Polantz said.

"In any cases that are still ongoing, where he previously represented someone, he is recused to the extent the Justice Department is investigating something related to the president, for which Todd Blanche was previously representing him. Then, hypothetically, yes, he would recuse. Is he out of this conspiracy investigation that Joe diGenova is leading? Is he out of any other so-called weaponization working group reports that would involve cases that had previously involved Trump?"

Former anchor leans on CNN to dump 'blowhard' Scott Jennings over menacing outburst

An obscene live TV outburst by CNN pundit Scott Jennings on Thursday night has led former CNN anchor Jim Acosta to call for the network to tear up the conservative pundit’s contract.

CNN host Abby Phillip had to jump in and calm the waters after Jennings got into it with liberal pundit Adam Mockler as he leaned in and blurted, “Get your f------ hand out of my face!" during a discussion about the Iran War.

Jennings' menacing manner evoked an immediate reaction from the “NewsNight” panel as well as a response from Acosta on Substack on Friday morning.

Comparing the language Jennings used to the fictional Ron Burgundy in the film “Anchorman,” which got Burgundy fired, Acosta claimed Jennings deserves the same fate in real life, stating that at any other network it would be a ‘fireable offense.”

Calling Jennings a “blowhard,” he recalled, “Jennings was a bit of a hot-head when I worked at CNN. I recall his glaring at me following one segment when I fact-checked him in real time. But wow, what happened Thursday night was next level. Mockler really got his goat.”

He said that the CNN conservative should be immediately fired.

"Of course, with the Ellisons now gobbling up Warner Brothers Discovery, the parent company of CNN, the new management that is likely to take over the 24-hour cable news station could simply rehire Jennings if, in the unlikely event, he is tossed overboard," Acosta added. "Make no mistake, the Ellisons, and their hand-picked executive now running CBS News and possibly CNN, Bari Weiss, would certainly relish the opportunity to rehire Jennings."

The latest Jennings controversy comes after similar complaints about the leeway the conservative has been given at the network, with CNN regular Julie Roginsky recently calling him out.

"He blathers. He talks over women with particular frequency, interrupts relentlessly, and treats panel discussions as contests of volume and obstinacy, rather than as exchanges of ideas," Roginsky said. "He mugs to the camera and rolls his eyes, while calling any fact he does not like a lie. It is performative obstruction — the cable news equivalent of flipping the board when you’re losing the game."