At the first stop of his “Thank You Tour” in Cincinnati on Thursday, president-elect Donald Trump mocked ABC News’ Martha Raddatz for appearing to get emotional on election night.
“How about when a major anchor who hosted a debate started crying when she realized that we won? How about that?” he said, mocking the anchor by mimicking a person crying. “Tears. ‘No, tell me this isn’t true.’”
Raddatz, who hosted the third presidential debate with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, appeared to get choked up on air while discussing Trump’s surprise victory on Election Night last month.
An ABC News spokesperson denied that Raddatz cried on air, calling the assertion “ridiculous and untrue” in a statement to TheWrap the following day. Raddatz herself denied the assertion on Twitter, writing “It is FICTION that I was ‘choked up.’”
Thank you Brian. You are correct. It is FICTION that I was "choked up." https://t.co/od5A9I86g9
— Martha Raddatz (@MarthaRaddatz) November 10, 2016
This isn’t the first time Trump has mocked Raddatz for appearing to get emotional on election night. The topic also came up at the president-elect’s media summit at Trump Tower last month.
At the off-the-record meeting with 30 to 40 news executives, journalists and anchors, Trump reportedly called out Raddatz, as well as NBC’s Katy Tur, CNN and Jeff Zucker, among others.
“Trump didn’t say [NBC reporter] Katy Tur by name, but talked about an NBC female correspondent who got it wrong, then he referred to a horrible network correspondent who cried when Hillary lost who hosted a debate — which was Martha Raddatz, who was also in the room,” an unnamed source told the New York Post.