Donald Trump Claims Jeff Zucker Will Resign From CNN Following Allegations He Has A Vendetta Against Trump
President Donald Trump seemed to suggest on Tuesday that he had heard rumors CNN President Jeff Zucker would resign in a tweet that claimed that the cable news network was a “virtual fraud.”
The tweet comes one day after a conservative advocacy group published audio from an alleged CNN “whistleblower” who claims that the network has an anti-Trump agenda.
The audio recordings, published Monday from Project Vertias, allege to show that CNN President Jeff Zucker urged network employees to focus CNN coverage solely on the impeachment inquiry into the president regardless of any other important news that might warrant coverage.
As Fox News noted, Project Vertias founder James O’Keefe had been trying to gain interest in the news by tweeting #ExposeCNN prior to Project Vertias’ release of the recordings. Per Fox News, the conservative advocacy group has released just the first recording in what it deemed a multi-part series of recordings.
Cary Poarch – the “whistleblower” – said he previously worked at CNN’s Washington Bureau and has evidence of an anti-Trump bias at the network. According to The Wrap, CNN has defended itself against the claims of bias, saying that no one in video, including the alleged whistleblower himself, is a journalist at CNN. CNN said that Poarch was not employed by CNN, but instead was a freelance satellite truck operator.
Now that we have found out that @CNN is a virtual fraud, rumor has it that Jeff Zucker will be resigining momentarily?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2019
Poarch claims that he recorded Zucker on a series of conference calls that were populated with other CNN executives. He claims these reveal Zucker’s agenda, which Poarch says involved “hammering Trump” or Republicans more broadly. The video also alleges to show CNN media coordinator Nick Neville on tape admitting that the CNN president has a Trump vendetta.
The president has often attacked CNN, viewed as a more liberal news network compared to the president’s favorite Fox News, though Trump has also more recently directed his media anger toward Fox News.
Although he, his administration, and his supporters have often espoused anti-media rhetoric, the White House on Monday condemned a doctored video that depicted to show the president shooting and killing figures that represented various media outlets, though the White House press secretary claimed the president had never seen the video.
The video, which took place inside a church, was said to have taken place in the “Church of Fake News,” according to a graphic in the video. The video appeared to be taken from Kingsman: The Secret Service, a 2014 movie. As The Inquisitr reported, the graphic clip was shown at a pro-Trump conference that was attended by his son, Donald Trump Jr. and his former Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
During the first year of his presidency in 2017, President Trump himself tweeted an edited video that depicted him beating a a man whose head was replaced with the CNN logo.
#FraudNewsCNN #FNN pic.twitter.com/WYUnHjjUjg
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2017
