CNN commentator Van Jones appears to acknowledge on hidden camera that the Trump-Russia scandal narrative pushed by his network is a “big nothing burger.”
This is the second undercover video released in the so-called “American Pravda” series from controversial muckraker James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas crew. More videos are apparently on the way.
The video only depicts a brief, friendly encounter on the street between Jones and one of the O’Keefe operatives, however. Perhaps more footage will be provided to offer additional context. “It is not clear if Jones is referring to the Russia controversy itself being a ‘nothing burger’ or the congressional or FBI investigations into alleged ties between Russia and Trump officials,” Breitbart News observed .
Van Jones has yet to make a comment about today’s disclosure, although according to Newsweek , while Jones supports the various Russia-related investigations, in the past he has chided the Democrats for thinking that the outcome of the probes will force Trump out of office absent a smoking gun.
Similarly, The Daily Caller added that “The comments caught on tape aren’t terribly inconsistent with what Jones has said in the past. While Jones has criticized Trump’s lukewarm responses to Russian election interference, he has also gone after the Democrats for using Russia as an excuse for their 2016 failure.”
After the first video dropped, the hashtag #AmericanPravda began trending on Twitter, and the same will probably accompany part two. During the Cold War, Pravda was the name of the official Communist Party newspaper in the Soviet Union.
Jones, a political activist and former Obama administration official in addition to his prominent CNN platform, has been very critical of the Trump administration notably on Election Night when he talked about a “white lash,” although he had predicted that Trump was likely to win. He also has been critical of the Hillary Clinton campaign for the way it wasted billions of dollars on a flawed electoral strategy.
Along with his studio colleagues, Van Jones has obviously often spoken on the air about the alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
As anyone with a TV knows, CNN has been covering the as yet unproven allegations about Russia meddling in the presidential campaign to the benefit of Donald Trump with almost the same degree of fervor as its covered the missing Malaysian airliner in 2014.
Yesterday, Project Veritas dropped a video that showed a long-time CNN producer conceding on clandestine tape that the network’s ongoing coverage of the President Trump-Russia investigation is “mostly bullsh*t” and a ratings grab.
In response to the first video, CNN put out a statement.
“CNN stands by our medical producer John Bonifield. Diversity of personal opinion is what makes CNN strong, we welcome it and embrace it.”
Although the producer is on the health beat, presumably someone with 15 years on the job is reflective of the company culture generally. President Trump has famously branded CNN as “very fake news.”
Yesterday, Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders encouraged voters to watch the first Project Veritas American Pravda video as a way to take the temperature of the news media, particularly for its reporting on what she deemed the Russia-Trump “hoax.”
NBC poll finds 50% of Americans, incl vast majority of Republicans, feel coverage of Trump allegations has been irresponsible/overdramatized pic.twitter.com/2AXNXlSlZi
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 23, 2017
As you would expect, the media critic in chief also chimed in on Twitter after American Pravda part one.
So they caught Fake News CNN cold, but what about NBC, CBS & ABC? What about the failing @nytimes & @washingtonpost ? They are all Fake News!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2017
Since the election, the Washington Post and/or the New York Times have been publishing a series of stories (some of which are later walked back) from anonymous sources or leaks that place the Trump administration in an unfavorable light. CNN then runs with the stories as breaking news.
Three CNN journalists resigned on Monday after the news network published and then retracted a story on its website that a member of the Trump transition team was linked to a Russian investment fund that was under investigation by the U.S. Senate, the New York Time s reported .
According to BuzzFeed, the retraction of the fake news report caused CNN to implement a new policy that any Russia-related content requires approval from two designated high-level executives. In the meantime, an internal investigation is reportedly ongoing.
Watch the Van Jones video from James O’Keefe/Project Veritas below and draw your own conclusions.
CNN has yet to issue a statement about the Van Jones Russia-related comments. As this is a developing story, watch this space for updates.
[Featured Image by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP Images]