Only a few hours into their coverage of the deadly terror attack in New York City on Tuesday, CNN found it more important to break away to continue to their Robert Mueller marathon. “A terror attack that killed eight people and injured a dozen others when a man in a truck mowed down bike riders and pedestrians on the west side. Much more on that coming up,” declared Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room. “But we have another breaking story we're following right now. President Trump and the Russia investigation.”
But let's stop for a second. Perhaps there was some sort of very important late-breaking development, someone else was indicted, someone confessed to collusion with Russia, or maybe: “Wolf, we do know that the President, for now, is going to reject the advice of Steve Bannon. Of course, this is the advice of how to handle this special counsel of Bob Mueller, how to treat him essentially,” reported Jeff Zeleny after “BREAKING NEWS” blasted across the screen.
They broke away from a terror attack that left at least 8 people dead and 15 injured, not to report the President fired Special Counsel Bob Mueller, but to report Trump was listening to his lawyers and would play nice with him. Zeleny elaborated:
So the President is saying I'm going to stick with the legal strategy that he has now, which is to cooperate with the Special Counsel's office, including allowing White House aids to be interviewed, including turning over e-mail and other matters here. So, this is something he's been thinking about for a while, but he's going to stick with the team he has. This is interesting because it certainly shows that it's more of this strategy of just going along to try to speed up this investigation to try to not be a road block, if you will.
Chief political analyst Gloria Borger went on about how Trump was getting pressured by friends and associates to get aggressive with Mueller. But according to Borger, “the President let it be known he's sticking with the strategy right now from his attorneys, which is just cooperate with Mueller, give him everything he wants.” Although, she noted that Trump could change his mind at any time.
They went on to gossip about how angry Trump was over the George Papadopoulos guilty plea and Blitzer quipped about how “we reported he was ‘seething’ yesterday when he was watching TV and watching the indictments, the guilty plea by George Papadopoulos come down.” And they seemed to take great joy in talking about how rumors which claimed Trump had stayed mostly confined to the White House residence since the news broke and not in the West Wing.
On Monday, CNN senior media reporter Brian Stelter chastised Fox News on Twitter for daring to report on any other major news topic other than the Mueller indictments. “CNN/MSNBC are treating today's news with the non-stop seriousness it deserves. Fox is covering it, but then switching to Fox-friendly topics,” he spat. Perhaps a deadly terror attack was one of those “Fox-friendly topics” they couldn’t do with.
Transcript below:
CNN
The Situation Room
October 31, 2017
6:56:12 PM EasternWOLF BLITZER: We're following breaking news out of New York City. A terror attack that killed eight people and injured a dozen others when a man in a truck mowed down bike riders and pedestrians on the west side. Much more on that coming up. But we have another breaking story we're following right now. President Trump and the Russia investigation. I want to bring in our Senior White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny and our Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger. They are both working their sources. Jeff, first of all, what are you learning?
JEFF ZELENY: Wolf, we do know that the President, for now, is going to reject the advice of Steve Bannon. Of course, this is the advice of how to handle this special counsel of Bob Mueller, how to treat him essentially. So the President is I'm going to stick with the legal strategy that he has now, which is to cooperate with the special counsel's office, including allowing White House aids to be interviewed, including turning over e-mail and other matters here. So, this is something he's been thinking about for a while, but he's going to stick with the team he has.
This is interesting because it certainly shows that it's more of this strategy of just going along to try to speed up this investigation to try to not be a road block, if you will. But as Gloria knows, there's some dissension in the ranks in the White House over what the President should do.
GLORIA BORGER: Yeah, look, the President is hearing from lots of people outside the White House. Friends and his former adviser Steve Bannon, who are saying: “You ought to get a little more aggressive here.” And I was talking to one person who said: “Look, the thinking is you're going to take the same abuse whether you go after Mueller or you don't go after Mueller, and you have to protect yourself.”
That's the argument that Steve Bannon is making to him directly on the phone recently. And the President let it be known he's sticking with the strategy right now from his attorneys, which is just cooperate with Mueller, give him everything he wants and however, there's a caveat here. We both know this. The President could change his mind at any moment.
He's not happy with the Papadopoulos stuff. He said to people, what else is coming down the pike that I don't know about. I didn't know who this person was. And that's what gets him agitated and that’s what gets him upset.
BLITZER: We reported he was seething yesterday when he was watching TV and watching the indictments, the guilty plea by George Papadopoulos come down.
(…)
