Commenting on President Donald Trump's tweets aimed at North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un, a CNN panel showed their exasperation with the president for taking his eye off the ball in order to rant about an investigation into Russia's use of Facebook to manipulate the 2016 election.
Friday morning Trump mentioned Facebook in the midst of a Twitter barrage, calling an FBI investigation into the purchase of 2016 election ads part of the "Russia hoax."
"The Russia hoax continues, now it's ads on Facebook," Trump tweeted before adding, "What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favor of Crooked Hillary?"
CNN contributor Chris Cillizza got right to the heart of the matter.
"There is no question" Cillizza excitedly explained. "No one who knows anything about the story, who has followed the story in any way, shape, or form, can reasonably conclude that this whole thing is a hoax. Frankly, it matters because we're talking about a foreign power actively seeking to influence the election. Whether they were successful or not is important but not the central point. That they did it, that this Facebook investigation shows how widespread it was, how advanced and innovative in terms of using social media it was, that's the point here."
Analyst David Sanger then attempted to explain Trump's obsession and motivation for clinging to the Russia "fake news"narrative.
"He rejects it for a simple reason," Sanger began. "He has a very difficult time separating out the fact of the Russians affecting the election and the outcome. We cannot prove and we will never be able to prove whether or not the Russian influence had any vote in the end or any consequential effect."
"But in the president's mind, as many around him have said many times, he believes this entire thing is about delegitimizing his election. My own view is, how hard could it be to say, 'I know I was legitimately elected as president. However, we can never tolerate a foreign power messing in our election. They have tried and here are the five things we're going to do starting with a commission that will look at what that was and how we prevent it in the 2018 and certainly the 2020 presidential election.'"
Noting the fact that Trump is now waging rhetorical war with North Korea abroad and the FBI at home, host Chris Cuomo wondered if Trump driving out his most trusted advisors.
"How long do you keep a Rex Tillerson, an H.R. McMaster if you keep embarrassing them in public where they go out and say things and then the president himself makes them look like they don't know what they are talking about?" Cuomo asked rhetorically.
Watch the video below via CNN:
