Trump attacks media in flurry of early morning tweets

President Donald Trump is using the resignations of three CNN journalists involved in a retracted Russia-related story to rail against media credibility. He tweeted, “CNN did the right thing”.

CNN retracted the story on Friday night, June 23. CNN also apologized to Scaramucci.

The retracted piece was posted to CNN.com last Thursday under the byline of reporter Thomas Frank.

In their statement, CNN had stated that the story that had been published had come from an anonymous source and they do not believe that the reporters falsified the story.

Scaramucci, who describes himself on Twitter as an “American entrepreneur”, graciously accepted CNN’s apology on Saturday.

President Trump’s press aide Sarah Huckabee Sanders urged all Americans to watch an online video posted by a conservative provocateur with a CNN producer commenting on his network’s coverage of Trump’s connections to Russian Federation.

The video clip from Project Veritas making the internet rounds Tuesday shows John Bonifield, a CNN producer, discussing how higher-ups at the network pushed round-the-clock coverage of the Trump/Russia scandal despite a lack of evidence that passes journalistic muster for ratings.

Haris, according to CNN, was named the executive editor of CNN Investigates in January. Also losing their jobs are Eric Lichtblau, an assistant managing editor at the organization’s Washington bureau, and Lex Harris, head of the investigations unit. Management basically said that they require more sources for a news story to go public than what the original editors actually had. That story did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted. Bonifield later goes on to say that the president is justified in saying “Look, you are witch hunting me”.

Lichtblau joined CNN and the investigative team three months ago. Frank and Lichtblau worked out of the CNN D.C. bureau; Haris was based in NY. “Ratings way down!” he tweeted Tuesday morning.

It is no secret there is no love lost between CNN and the president. The investigation is not a conspiracy against him, but what is true is that the President appears to be unwell.

But behind the scenes, CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker has cheered the challenges from Trump, since it has helped boost the network’s ratings and given it a new branding identity. “They’re looking for something more, and I think they deserve something better from our news media”.

CNN’s Jim Acosta gets into nearly daily skirmishes with White House press secretary Sean Spicer over questions about the administration’s transparency.