CNN anchor Chris Cuomo dealt a rare blow to his own network on Thursday night, due to the now denied report about the Biden administration “starting from scratch” with a coronavirus vaccine deployment plan.
On Thursday, CNN raised eyebrows at its alleged “scoop” that quoted unidentified Biden employees as saying, “There’s nothing to redo. We’re going to have to build everything from scratch,” as well as that the new administration would have to start from scratch. “square one” because, according to CNN, “there was simply no plan.”
During a press conference at the White House later in the day, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was chosen by President Biden during the transition to be a White House adviser, was asked directly by NBC News correspondent Kristen Welker if the new government was “starting from scratch.”
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“We are certainly not starting from scratch because there is activity going on in distribution,” replied Fauci before drawing up the Biden government’s own plan.
Later, Fauci appeared on “Cuomo Prime Time”, but even the CNN star was quite skeptical of her network’s reports.
“Another thing I don’t buy comes from our report … that people in the administration say they are starting from scratch with the vaccine. No, they are not!” Cuomo exclaimed. “You have an infrastructure that you are well aware of that needs to be improved. But they also shouldn’t get any benefit from a low bar here. … Are they going to scrap or build to make it better?”
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“No, no, they will not discard it,” replied Fauci.
“I was involved in the development of that. They would not get rid of it,” Fauci then laughed.
CNN released the story heavily before the briefing. According to media critic Fourth Watch and former CNN producer Steve Krakauer, the anti-Trump network mentioned its now disputed scoop “a total of 23 times” before Fauci spoke to the press.
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CNN White House correspondent MJ Lee, author of the controversial report, defended his reporting on social media, characterizing Fauci as “a remnant of the Trump administration”.
Lee also tried to rely on President Biden’s previous comments to validate his report, tweeting, “In the last hour, Biden said the Trump vaccine launch was a ‘total failure’.”
The CNN reporter was ridiculed by critics for referring to Fauci as a “remnant” of President Trump.
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Since early Friday morning, no correction, retraction or editor’s note has been added to CNN’s original report that was posted on its website. A small suburb was placed at the end of reading the report: “This story has been updated with additional reports.”
CNN did not respond to Fox News’s request for comment.