A day after a controversial Tweet was sent to President Donald Trump from the account of CNN host Anderson Cooper, the network issued a statement in an attempt to diffuse the situation.
The Tweet posted by Cooper’s account had called Trump a “pathetic loser” and suggested Trump was lying.
The Tweet was in response to a Tweet by Trump in which the President said that he had originally endorsed Luther Strange in the Alabama Republican primaries, because Roy Moore would not be able to win a general election. Moore lost the Senate race on Tuesday to Democrat Doug Jones.
The reason I originally endorsed Luther Strange (and his numbers went up mightily), is that I said Roy Moore will not be able to win the General Election. I was right! Roy worked hard but the deck was stacked against him!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2017
In fact, what Trump said in his Dec. 13 Tweet is exactly what what he had said on Sept. 22 during a rally he attended for Strange in Huntsville Alabama, as reported in a Tweet by a local reporter.
Trump says Strange would definitely win general, and Roy Moore has a very good chance of not winning it. #alpolitics #alsen
— David Kumbroch WHNT (@davidknews) September 23, 2017
Anderson’s inaccurate and insulting Tweet comes as CNN has found itself in hot water over a number of inaccurate stories.
The fiercely anti-Trump network was forced to issue a correction last Friday after it had reported that the Trump campaign was given advance access to emails obtained by Wikileaks. In the embarrassing correction, CNN said that the email to Trump offering access to the Wikileak emails was actually sent after the emails had been publicly released.
In response to Cooper’s Tweet, CNN initially said that someone “someone gained access to the handle @andersoncooper and replied to POTUS.”
This morning someone gained access to the handle @andersoncooper and replied to POTUS. We're working with Twitter to secure the account.
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) December 13, 2017
Hours later CNN issued a statement to Washington Post reporter Erik Wemple.
Geolocation tools confirm that the tweet in question was not sent from Anderson Cooper’s phone. Anderson was in Washington, and we have proof the tweet was sent from New York, from a phone belonging to his assistant.
His assistant inadvertently left his phone unlocked and unattended at the gym early this morning, and someone took the phone and sent the tweet. His assistant, who has worked with Anderson for more than a decade, is the only other person with access to Anderson’s Twitter account.
The explanation, however, raised a lot of questions on Twitter.
most people that steal a phone send funny tweets from the account. Yeah yeah, that’s it. #fakenews
— Wayne Way (@waynekway) December 13, 2017
And when they steal a phone they immediately recognize it's his assistant, go to @andersoncooper twitter account, send 1 tweet, nothing else, never think how much $ for selling phone containing his info to Enquirer, suddenly get a conscience & immediately return phone. YEP!
— Keelin Madden (@KeelinMadden) December 14, 2017
Ah yes, the ole' "I accidentally went into my phone settings, disabled the security features I had on it, left it on a towel or in an unlocked locker, and someone went into my Twitter and posted only on a Trump tweet" excuse.
— Shane Styles (@shaner5000) December 13, 2017
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From The Epoch Times