Last week, CNN said that their anonymous sources made it clear that President Trump would not push Russian President Vladimir Putin on the meddling in their first official meeting at the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany. Alas, the network stepped in it again since they were wrong. The president did discuss the meddling with Putin (via The Hill):
President Trump early Sunday said he "strongly pressed" Russian President Vladimir Putin during the G-20 summit on Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election.
"I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I've already given my opinion…" the president tweeted.
"...We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!" he added.
Trump did not say whether he accepted Putin's denial, however.
Top administration officials on Saturday did not refute Putin's claims that Trump seemed satisfied with the Russian leader's denial that the Kremlin did not interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
Matt Wolking, a Capitol Hill staffer with Sen. Marco Rubio’s office, hilariously captured all of this in the tweet below:
CNN all week: An anonymous source says Trump won't confront Putin about Russia meddling in the election!
— Matt Wolking (@MattWolking) July 7, 2017
Today: https://t.co/ik4daHedVA pic.twitter.com/bVTdhlnXWn
JUST IN: Trump began meeting with Putin by raising concerns on 2016 election meddling, Sec. of State Tillerson says https://t.co/QBuSawjkTG pic.twitter.com/3kVVzGi00S
— CNN (@CNN) July 7, 2017
If anything, CNN should become the textbook example of the perilous nature of using anonymous sources. Granted, not all of them are bad. Associate Director of the FBI Mark Felt, known as Deep Throat in the coverage by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, assisted The Washington Post’s reporting of the Watergate Scandal, but times have changed. The network recently had to ask for the resignations of three of their reporters over a shoddy Russia-Trump story that had to be retracted. CNN staffers were reportedly furious over the fallout from the retraction, as they’ve “lost the moral high ground.” That continues to be the case it seems.