Last Updated on December 1, 2020
In leaked audio, CNN President Jeff Zucker can be heard instructing the network to editoralise President Trump as crazy, erratic, and using steroids.
Investigative journalist James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas gained access to the morning call conducted by CNN journalists for seemingly months before the presidential election in November, and have been able to leak audio from those calls with top CNN staff members.
In the morning call dated 9th October, CNN President Jeff Zucker can be heard telling staff that they must not “normalize” the crazy and “erratic” behavior of President Trump, who Zucker alleges may be suffering with symptoms related to steroids:
I just want to re-emphasize that, you know, I think we cannot normalize what has happened here in the last week with Trump and his behavior… This is a President who knows he’s losing, who knows he’s in trouble, is sick (with coronavirus), maybe is on, the after effects of steroids or not, I don’t know. But he is acting erratically and desperately, and we need to not normalize that… This is what we’ve come to expect for the last three and a half, four years, but it clearly is exacerbated by the time that we’re in and the issues that he’s dealing with. And I think we cannot just let it be normalized. He is all over the place and acting erratically, and I think we need to lean into that.
Zucker was also caught instructing his staff members to hype up every single scandal that President Trump faced in the run up to the election. “Each of these so called scandals for Trump. Each of these things, we should just once again be careful to say that this is the one that is going to undo him with his voters,” Zucker said.
“I don’t know why we would expect any of these politicians to have a conscience and/or expect the politics wouldn’t be completely hypocritical,” Zucker said in the call on the morning of 21st September. “And for us to expect anything else would be naive.” The context of this call is unclear, but with the timing, it may relate to the replacement of the late Justice Ginsburg on the Supreme Court by congressional Republicans.
Zucker can be further heard on various calls saying that they should not report news that favored President Trump such as Attorney General Bill Barr’s unmasking probe, as they are just “unsubstantiated smears,” and they need to go “well after” Senator Lindsey Graham for defending President Trump after the election.
BREAKING: @CNN President BLASTS Trump & Republicans on 9am Call with Senior Leadership
'He(@realDonaldTrump) is acting erratically…I think we need to lean into that…'
“If we’ve made any mistake, its been our banners have been too polite…”#CNNTapes pic.twitter.com/zMIRxq9qC6
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) December 2, 2020
In the first tape, Project Veritas revealed that CNN had been given their marching orders by the Democrat Party to cover up President Trump’s legal challenges on the legitimacy of the election. As National File reported:
In the Project Veritas audio, CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel says, “I have been hearing the same thing both from Republicans who have not come out to congratulate Biden, but also to those who have and Democrats who have and the Democrats, and that is that we have to be, you know, news organizations have to be very careful and very responsible about not giving Trump too much of a platform on his not conceding because they feel the transition can go forward.”
“And you know, other than the national security briefings, which are critical to start now, they just don’t want us to exaggerate that Trump isn’t leaving office,” Gangel says in regards to the Democrat Party…
CNN Field Producer Stephanie Becker goes to recommend that the network craft a narrative that a Trump refusal to transition would be akin to letting the 9/11 terror attacks happen: “So, if you want a good, concrete example of what happens when you don’t have a good transition, well, look at the twin towers.”
