CNN’s General Counsel has been caught on tape describing Tucker Carlson’s show as Fox News’s “White Supremacy Hour.”
The audio was released as part of the CNN Tapes from James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas. O’Keefe and his team managed to gain access to CNN’s 9 a.m. conference calls for a few months before and after the presidential eleciton, and were able to surreptitiously record high level executives at the company.
David Vigilante, CNN’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel, who had been initially misidentified on the call as CNN’s VP of Global Programming, Marcus Mabry, can be heard on the 8th of September slandering their competition at Fox News, Tucker Carlson, as peddling white supremacy. Discussing an unknown story, Vigilante declared that it was unavoidable to talk about “the naked racism of Tucker Carlson” along with it.
“That’s really what drove this anti-diversity push,” Vigilante said. “Trump watches Tucker Carlson’s show and then reacts. And just as sort of the ‘White Supremacy Hour’ they have on Fox News every night… You can’t disconnect the two.”
Nine days later, CNN President Jeff Zucker said that President Trump was simply “airing the grievances he hears on Fox News every night,” with Zucker clearly upset that Tucker Carlson and others on the network had the President’s ear.
CORRECTION: @CNNPR has just informed @Project_Veritas that the executive on this tape is in fact their GENERAL COUNSEL David Vigilante, not @marcusmabry.
As if that somehow makes it better for them…
We apologize for the misidentification.
More tapes dropping soon#CNNTapes https://t.co/19QweyWI4G
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) December 2, 2020
National File reported on the earlier CNN Tapes that Project Veritas released, including Zucker demanding that staff editoralize the President as acting “erratic”:
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…
“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,” Zucker said. “But he is acting erratically and desperately, and we need to not normalize that.”
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.”
