CNN’s Tapper says White House canceled Bolton interview after Trump-Acosta exchange

CNN host Jake Tapper said Saturday that the White House canceled national security adviser John Bolton’s appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” after President Trump’s tense exchange with a network correspondent at a Friday press conference.

Tapper tweeted that Bolton was scheduled to appear on the Sunday show and “remains fully prepared to do the interview but the White House has canceled it.”

{mosads}Tapper cited Trump’s refusal to take a question from CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta during a press conference in London on Friday. He called the network “fake news” at the time.

Update: @AmbJohnBolton had been locked in for tomorrow’s @CNNSOTU. Then the president attacked CNN during his UK presser, and our WH correspondent tried to ask a question. We are told Amb. Bolton remains fully prepared to do the interview but the White House has canceled it.

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 14, 2018

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

“CNN is fake news. I don’t take questions from CNN,” Trump said at a press conference Friday after Acosta tried to ask a question.

“Let’s go to a real network,” the president said, before turning to Fox News’s John Roberts.

At the end of the briefing, as Trump was leaving, Acosta yelled a question about whether Trump would tell Russian President Vladimir Putin to stay out of U.S. elections, to which Trump replied “yes.”

Trump had also taken a question from a CNN reporter during a Thursday press conference after the NATO summit in Brussels.

Trump falsely claimed in a tweet early Saturday that the network hadn’t covered his exchange, which he called a “takedown,” with Acosta. 

So funny! I just checked out Fake News CNN, for the first time in a long time (they are dying in the ratings), to see if they covered my takedown yesterday of Jim Acosta (actually a nice guy). They didn’t! But they did say I already lost in my meeting with Putin. Fake News……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2018

Trump has repeatedly slammed CNN, among other media outlets and newspapers, as “fake news.”

Last year he tweeted out a doctored video of him attacking a person whose face was replaced with the CNN logo.