Top White House adviser Kellyanne Conway conceded on Tuesday that CNN, a network she feuded with over the weekend and which President Donald Trump has repeatedly derided as “fake news,” has done some “amazing” coverage of terrorist attacks.
A day earlier, Trump said that the media is not reporting on many terror attacks.
During an interview Tuesday on CNN’s “The Lead,” host Jake Tapper showed Conway footage of his colleagues covering terrorist attacks in Paris, Brussels and San Bernardino.
“I spent two weeks in Paris in 2015 reporting on the attacks,” Tapper said. “CNN and other organizations cover terrorism around the world all the time. Saying that we don’t cover terrorism, that’s just false.”
“What the president is saying there, Jake, is that there are other attacks that don’t get as much coverage. Obviously the very sad incidents you related where frankly CNN did amazing coverage for weeks at a time,” Conway said. “Those get coverage. The other ones on the list, not so much.”
“Those ones were on the list,” Tapper said. “The ones I just recited for you were on the list.”
Conway said those attacks were covered because of the “high casualties” that resulted and that Trump was “making two points” in his remarks.
“One is we just can’t allow ourselves to become inured to terrorist attacks, to see it as the new normal,” she said. “Number two, the point that he is making is according to the Tyndall Report and other sources, we had inordinate coverage on President, excuse me, candidate Trump during the Republican primary, 333 minutes on him, and really, I mean, five times as much coverage on him as these terrorist attacks.”
She said that major networks gave Prince’s death “frankly more coverage” than terror attacks.
.@jaketapper to Kellyanne Conway: Saying that we don’t cover terrorism is just false. It’s offensive. https://t.co/z792GDX8Bg
— CNN (@CNN) February 7, 2017
“That’s a lovely spin. But that’s not what he was saying,” Tapper said. “He was saying the media does not cover these stories because we don’t want to cover them because we have some sort of agenda. That’s what he was suggesting and it’s offensive given the fact that CNN and other media organizations have reporters in danger right now in war zones covering ISIS.”
“First of all, I want to tell you I don’t intend to spin,” Conway said. “I’m crediting the coverage at CNN and your colleagues across the media gave to these high profile and high casualty, very sad, very vicious attacks.”
“President Trump was clearly saying that the media does not cover terrorist attacks that we clearly cover, and he was saying we don’t do it because we don’t want to do it and because we have some sort of ulterior motive in that,” Tapper said. “That’s not what you’re saying right now, but that is what he’s saying.”
During a speech on Monday at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, Trump claimed that the media is not reporting on terrorist attacks for reasons of its own.
“It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it,” he said. “They have their reasons, and you understand that.”
The White House on Monday night released a list of 78 terror attacks it said have been ignored by the press. However, the list included attacks that earned widespread coverage.
Conway acknowledged earlier Tuesday that some attacks on the list did in fact receive “international coverage and wall-to-wall coverage.”
