President Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday night to blast CNN as “fake news” and to praise Fox News for finishing No. 1 in inauguration-day ratings.
During Friday’s inauguration coverage from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. ET, Fox News averaged 8.76 million viewers to beat CNN, MSNBC, HLN, FBN and CNBC combined.
Fox News also beat broadcast inauguration coverage, with NBC’s 5.79 million viewers finishing second. But those statistics were released on Saturday, so Trump presumably noticed he didn’t like on CNN before firing off the tweet.
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CNN quickly responded.
Trump also scolded CNN during his first press conference as president-elect, apparently because he doesn’t like the way the network handled coverage of a controversial Russia dossier that was eventually published by BuzzFeed. CNN reporter Jim Acosta attempted to ask a question, but Trump refused to call on him and called CNN “fake news.”
Acosta has since been called on by Press Secretary Sean Spicer during White House briefings. CNN released a statement earlier this month responding to Trump’s allegation that CNN is “fake news.”
“CNN’s decision to publish carefully sourced reporting about the operations of our government is vastly different than BuzzFeed’s decision to publish unsubstantiated memos,” the network said. “The Trump team knows this. They are using BuzzFeed’s decision to deflect from CNN’s reporting, which has been matched by the other major news organizations.”
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