CNN’s Chris Cuomo, the anti-Trump pundit who hosts CNN’s failing morning show, spread fake news about a gun purchase and then melted down after he was called out for it.
The story Cuomo retweeted is titled “I was able to buy an AR-15 in five minutes — I’m 20 and my ID is expired.” But the headline is completely false. The young man did not buy the weapon or go through a background check. So he did not buy an AR-15 in five minutes. He did not buy an AR-15 at all.
“After he walked me through the paperwork, all five pages of it,” the non-buyer eventually admits, “I told him I changed my mind and wanted to think more before I bought an AR-15.”
The non-buyer also admits that he did not even fill out the paperwork, “If I had stayed for maybe three minutes longer to fill out less paperwork than I did for the hiring process at my school’s bookstore, I would’ve driven home with an AR-15.”
The non-buyer is also sketchy about the facts surrounding his expired ID. “I gave him my license, then reached for my receipt showing I renewed it the week before,” he writes, and then adds that the clerk asked for even more verification of his identity: “Before I even got it out of my pocket, the employee told me I was good and I just needed my vehicle registration for verification. He didn’t notice that my license had expired recently.”
Finally, the non-buyer tries to alarm us with the news that he went through “no extensive background check.” But that is what all that paperwork is for, the background check — which he never filled out.
After you fill out the paperwork, all of that information is fed into the national background check system, a process that once took me 45 minutes.
An accurate headline would read “After Five Minutes of Window Shopping a Clerk Offered to Sell Me an AR-15” — but that is not a story, that is a diary entry.
Nevertheless, the anti-gun Cuomo, who identifies as an objective journalist, retweeted this fake news, and was eventually called on it by Chet Cannon: “Hey, Chris Cuomo from CNN. Saw the article you retweeted: ‘I WAS ABLE TO BUY AN AR-15 IN 5 MINUTES[.]’ Did you see the part where he admits to neither filling out the necessary paperwork (which would initiate the background check) NOR purchasing the AR-15? Weird.”
Rather than apologize for spreading fake news, Cuomo spread even more disinformation. “Isn’t the point that the kid’s age and lack of ID wasn’t a deterrent,” Cuomo asked. The obvious answer to Cuomo’s desperate dissembling is no. The article clearly states that the clerk did not notice that the ID was expired, so we do not know what would have happened if he had. Moreover, the non-buyer’s ID had just been renewed and he had the verification to prove it.
Charles C.W. Cooke, editor of National Review Online, called Cuomo out for compounding the non-buyer’s lie with one of his (Cuomo’s) own. “The point is that the kid lied about buying a gun that he didn’t, and that you are now lying too,” Cooke wrote.
This is when Cuomo melted down, starting with at least four hysterical non sequiturs and three shrill straw men: “Lying? Look if you want to fight against background checks, make the case. Whether it is calling the kids actors or LYING about how no laws could stop the shootings…that is the bs to call out. 97% of people want better checks. Why fight that?”
1) Cooke said nothing about background checks. 2) Cooke never called the school kids CNN is under fire for exploiting “actors.” 3) Cooke never said anything about laws not stopping shootings. 4) Cooke never said anything about what percentage of Americans want background checks. 5) Cooke is not fighting anything except Cuomo spreading fake news.
Cuomo’s meltdown continued after another Twitter user accused him of lying to “get the outcome he desires.”
“Many ignore you – not me,” the arrogant Cuomo shrieked, before hurling all the same straw men that have nothing to do with Cuomo spreading the fake news about the five-minute AR-15 non-purchase.
This is the second time in less than a week the left-wing Cuomo has been caught spreading fake news.
A mere four days ago, after Sen. Ted Cruz had already recorded a 15-minute interview with the far-left CNN, Cuomo taunted the Republican senator for refusing to appear on CNN.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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