Watters on CNN spy report: Media, not Trump, is putting national security at risk
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CNN attempted to show that President Trump has endangered national security but actually showed that the media is doing just that.
That was the claim of co-host Jesse Watters as "The Five" discussed a disputed CNN report on the CIA allegedly removing a spy from Russia because President Trump had mishandled classified information.
Both the CIA and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed back on the reporting, with Pompeo, who previously led the CIA, specifically saying it was "factually wrong." CIA Director of Public Affairs Brittany Bramell similarly called the network's narrative "simply false."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Again, it's not Trump putting national security at risk. ... It's the media," Watters said on Tuesday.
After Watters claimed that CNN potentially put lives in danger, "Five" co-host Dana Perino said people's lives could still be at risk because of the network's reporting.
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"Let's be clear: Lives could still be in danger, maybe even more so now," Perino said. "This is supposed to be a news story, not an episode of 'The Americans,'" Perino said, referring to a dramatic FX series about Russian spies living in the United States in the 1980s.
Co-host Kennedy said the botched story exhibited a bigger problem with CNN's reporting, in that it was too eager to find damning information about the president.
"Right now, for places like CNN, it's really 'choose-your-own-adventure,'" she said. "And if you get some facts that are not correlated or really directly tied to the ultimate conclusion, you just go ahead and make it up.
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"You just go ahead and craft a bridge out of your own intentions regardless of their truth or falsehood and that's what's most dangerous. And I think part of it is this desire to bring the president down and really pin something on him because your intuition is telling you that something is not right -- could be your hurt feelings -- however, going ahead and just throwing anything at him, regardless of facts, it's dangerous."