Ohio Senator JD Vance challenged CNN host Jake Tapper over the network’s past coverage of former President Donald Trump during the “Russia Hoax,” in an exchange Sunday morning.
On CNN’s most recent State of the Union, airing less than ten days before Election Day, Republican vice-presidential nominee Vance discussed a range of issues with Tapper, honing in on Trump’s comments and policies, as well as accusations against him.
The conversation covered former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s recent allegations that Trump was a “fascist” and touched on the Trump-Russia investigation during his presidency.
Vance asked Tapper “to step back a little bit and ask yourself a basic question about network integrity. You guys [CNN] talked about the Russia Hoax nonstop.” Tapper interjected, “The FBI was investigating it,” adding that the outlet was covering the FBI investigation.
In 2017, the FBI began an investigation into allegations that Russia launched an influence campaign favoring Trump in the 2016 election. The “Steele dossier,” which was created by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, contained unverified and uncorroborated allegations that were reported on by news outlets, including CNN. The document, originally opposition research, was funded by Democrats.
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Two years later, special counsel Robert Mueller released a 448-page report that revealed the findings of the investigation looking into whether members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election.
The probe found that Russia sought to influence the election in favor of Trump, however, it did not uncover collusion or criminal conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Trump has consistently denied the “Russia Hoax” allegations, calling them “fake news.” In a 2023 opinion article in Newsweek, the former president described it as a “de-facto coup attempt” and “a massive disinformation campaign and lawless persecution based on the monstrous lie that I was a traitor to my country.”
Vance continued: “And so you took the words of unnamed FBI agents and put them on your network as if they were the gospel truth, you did it again and again. A viewer of your network would have believed that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin conspired in 2016—”
“No,” Tapper said shaking his head.
“—That was totally and preposterously false,” Vance said. Tapper rebutted, “What you just said is false. We covered an FBI investigation.”
Vance pushed back saying, “You covered it in a way that gave credence to anonymous sources’ accusations, you did it yourself, your network did it.”
He later added that, “Kamala Harris and her media allies–and I would put CNN in this category–you guys seem to care more about Donald Trump’s past than the future of the American people.”
Tapper said the Harris campaign wouldn’t put CNN in that category, and then clarified, “I’m specifically asking about how Donald Trump is going to be president in the future should he win.”
Newsweek has reached out to CNN’s press team and Trump’s campaign for comment via email on Sunday.
In January 2023, the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) published a lengthy report from a year-and-a-half investigation into the media coverage of the Russia-Trump investigation, finding that several major news outlets, like The New York Times, had “serious flaws” in their coverage.
CJR editor-in-chief Kyle Pope wrote in the introduction to the report: “No narrative did more to shape Trump’s relations with the press than Russiagate. The story, which included the Steele dossier and the Mueller report among other totemic moments, resulted in Pulitzer Prizes as well as embarrassing retractions and damaged careers.
“For Trump, the press’s pursuit of the Russia story convinced him that any sort of normal relationship with the press was impossible,” Pope wrote.
