On Monday night, CNN host Anderson Cooper compared President Donald Trump to a dictator whose son reportedly drove around and shot people who were not supportive enough as the dictator’s regime came to an end.
“In the mid-90s, I think it was like ’96, I was in Kinshasa in the waning days of Mobutu, and Mobutu was a pretty awful dictator and when he finally fled the country and the rebels were moving to take the capital, his son drove around in a pick-up truck with a machine gun and settling scores with people he felt with people had not been supportive enough with Mobutu,” Cooper said. “Thankfully, it hasn’t come to that here, but I can’t believe we’re in a situation where a transfer of power is not—I can’t believe we are in this situation here—it just seems so petty and I know it’s about Georgia and I know it’s about setting up grievance politics that will perhaps allow him to run in four years.”
WATCH:
CNN's @AndersonCooper compares @realDonaldTrump with an evil dictator whose son drives around shooting his enemies with a machine gun. WHAT? Folks, these are the "journalists" responsible for reporting the news. Outrageous! pic.twitter.com/5QBBKsqxTS
— Mary Vought (@MaryVought) November 10, 2020
Donald Trump Jr. responded to Cooper by posting Cooper standing in waist-deep water during a hurricane in 2008 — presumably for dramatic effect — while the camera crew stood in water that was only up to their ankles.
The president’s son added numerous clown emojis to his tweet, which is another way of calling Cooper a clown show.
🤡🤡🤡 https://t.co/MzGvNhawl4 pic.twitter.com/HAPrwO0Y1l
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 10, 2020
That photo has some history behind it as Donald Trump Jr. trolled Cooper with it back in 2018, which sent Cooper into a bit of a meltdown on air where Cooper proceeded to make false claims.
The Daily Wire reported at the time:
CNN’s Anderson Cooper became enraged on Monday over pictures and memes of him that had been spread over the weekend on social media that showed him in flood waters, which many falsely assumed was from Hurricane Florence.
The images were from ten years ago when Hurricane Ike hit the Southern United States and Cooper was reporting from Texas.
Cooper used the fact-check segment to lie about Donald Trump Jr. after the president’s son had tweeted out a picture from the 2008 broadcast.
“Donny Jr. was claiming it showed me in Florence faking the depths of flood waters in order to somehow harm his father,” Cooper said. “And I quote from his tweet ‘stop lying to try to make @realDonaldTrump look bad.’”
Trump Jr. never said the photo was from Hurricane Florence and he was clearly not insinuating that Cooper was “faking the depths of flood waters in order to somehow harm his father.”
The tweet was a link to a news article that highlighted the fact that CNN’s ratings have collapsed by 41% compared to the same time last year. Trump Jr. was clearly suggesting that if CNN wanted their ratings to improve they should not lie about his father. The picture was merely added to the tweet as a troll move.
Cooper proceeded by attacking Trump Jr. for hunting animals and for not being on the ground actively helping in the recovery of Hurricane Florence.
Cooper also bemoaned the fact that the photo had shown up in “various memes alleging fake news.”
This article has been updated to include excerpts from a prior article that was published on The Daily Wire.