Donald Trump and CNN’s Jeff Zeleny – CNN’s full-time Jeff Zeleny, by the way – just had what often passes for political debate these days, with the President-elect retweeting a batch of anti-CNN comments after Zeleny called out Trump’s unfounded claims of rampant voter fraud.
On Anderson Cooper 360 tonight, CNN’s senior Washington correspondent Zeleny accurately called Trump’s tweeted claims Sunday of “millions” of illegal votes “baseless.” Trump’s response was to retweet messages that criticized CNN, including one that referred to Zeleny as “just another generic CNN part time wannabe journalist.”
The pro-Trump tweets mostly demanded that Zeleny provide evidence that Hillary Clinton didn’t get millions of illegal votes, a prove-the-negative supposition that Trump apparently supported. “CNN still doesn’t get it,” the President-elect added to one tweet. “They will never learn!”
Finally, Trump tweeted a message of his own, saying that CNN “is so embarrassed by their total (100%) support of Hillary Clinton, and yet her loss in a landslide, that they don’t know what to do.”
Zelleny, meanwhile, says he’s still looking for those illegal votes. And that he’s fully employed.
Another big topic on cable news today was the seemingly rogue appearances on Sunday morning’s Beltway shows by Trump strategist Kellyanne Conway, who repeatedly sniped at Mitt Romney and said his appointment as Secretary of State would be a “betrayal” of Trump supporters.
While panelists on Don Lemon’s CNN show tonight debated whether Conway had been working in concert with her boss, The New York Times had received a statement from Trump’s spokeswoman Hope Hicks indicating Conway had Trump’s support.
The Trump statement published on the Times‘ website tonight for tomorrow’s edition reads: “Kellyanne came to me and asked whether or not she could go public with her thoughts on the matter. I encouraged her to do so. Most importantly she fully acknowledged there is only one person that makes the decision. She has always been a tremendous asset and that will continue.”
But the Times also quotes anonymous sources within Trump Tower saying that Conway “had been neither insubordinate nor acting directly on the president-elect’s instruction.”
Continues the Times: “Ms. Conway was simply doing what she knows Mr. Trump likes: encouraging a public airing of conflicting views when he is unsure of what path to take.”
In any case, Trump clearly knew what path to take with CNN’s Zeleny. Here are tonight’s tweets as they were blasted…
