CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday cut off a contentious interview with White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, as the two sparred about President Trump and the news network.
“I get it. There’s one viewer that you care about right now and you’re being obsequious and you’re being a factotum in order to please him, OK,” Tapper said on “State of the Union,” appearing to reference the president.
“And I think I’ve wasted enough of my viewers’ time. Thank you, Stephen,” Tapper added as he ended the interview.
Miller earlier had defended Trump during the appearance, which quickly degenerated as Miller criticized CNN for its coverage of the Trump White House.
“Not only do I think they help it, but I think in the toxic environment that you’ve created here and CNN and cable news, which is a real crisis of legitimacy for your network,” Miller said when asked about the president’s tweet claiming to be “a very stable genius.”
{mosads}Miller slammed the network over a mistake it made last year in a report about the Russia investigation and accused CNN of not covering issues he said are important to Americans.
“You have 24 hours a day of anti-Trump material and you’re not going to give three minutes for the American people to hear the real experience of Donald Trump?” Miller asked.
After returning from a commercial break, Tapper appeared to chide Miller, telling viewers, “welcome back to ‘State of the Union’ and to planet Earth.”
In a tweet following the exchange, Trump said Tapper was “destroyed” in the interview.
“Jake Tapper of Fake News CNN just got destroyed in his interview with Stephen Miller of the Trump Administration,” he said. “Watch the hatred and unfairness of this CNN flunky!”
— This report was updated at 10:18 a.m.