CNN anchor John King said on air Tuesday that President Trump thought his viewers were dumb.
“The president thinks you’re stupid,” King declared while wagging his finger. “The president thinks people are stupid.”
King’s mini-outburst came when his show, “Inside Politics,” played footage of former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci telling “Morning Joe” that calling out Trump’s lies may feel good, but it’s not the way to defeat him in 2020.
“When you guys are upset about it and listing all the lies and trying to explain that you can’t get a tax cut done in 10 days, people are happy about the fact that he is a wrecking ball inside of Washington and smashing into this,” Scaramucci told Joe and Mika. “If you want to beat the president, exposing his lies or explaining them to people is not going to beat the president.”
“You listen to that and it’s stunning,” said an exasperated King. “He does not dispute the president’s lying. He actually says on several occasions the president is lying.”
It’s the latest mini-explosion from a CNN news personality. On Monday, the network’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta told a live audience at CNN headquarters in New York that Trump was a fundamentally “deceptive” and “dishonest” person.
For his part, the president has routinely used CNN as a foil on the campaign trail and after he took office. Trump frequently disparages the network and their reporters as “fake news” and pounces on any factual mistake that the channel makes.