CNN found themselves turning slowly over the social media roasting spit after posting a video of a reporter verbally accosting an elderly Florida Trump supporter over her supposed collusion with Russian propagandists.
All the woman did, by the way, was apparently share an event to her pro-Trump Facebook page back in 2016 from a group called “Being Patriotic,” which CNN said was later found to be run by Russians.
“Florine Gruen Goldfarb runs the Team Trump Broward County Facebook page, which posted numerous times about events that were promoted and encouraged by the Russians,” CNN claimed.
While the events that Goldfarb promoted and attended were very much real and flooded with actual Trump supporters, CNN added that many of the rallies had been influenced by Kremlin-linked actors – something Goldfarb had exactly zero way of knowing at the time.
CNN’s response to this woman unwittingly sharing a supposedly Russia-backed event on her Facebook page was to show up in her driveway, shove a microphone in her face and accuse her of being complicit in Russian election-meddling.
A Florida woman who ran a Trump supporters page that unwittingly promoted a Russian-coordinated event on Facebook says she doesn’t believe that she was influenced by Kremlin-linked trolls https://t.co/DmgDRFRwyn pic.twitter.com/OAz5julCyA
— CNN (@CNN) February 21, 2018
Clearly confused and caught off guard, Goldfarb denied having anything to do with Russia, telling CNN's Drew Griffin that everyone who had shown up to the events she'd promoted were verified Trump supporters.
"They were at my meetings. They're all Trump supporters," she said. "I don't go with Russians, c'mon, give me a break."
CNN’s video was met with a flood of criticism for the network’s open harassment of a woman who’d clearly done nothing but innocently promote and attend a political rally in support of her candidate.
WoW #CNN you actually traced some user of @facebook down that actually seen and used one of the @KremlinRussia_E commercials and just look what you found awesome JOB!
— Boiling Crude (@BoilingCrude) February 21, 2018
What was his point? To prove that she is a Trump supporter? Success!
— Trooper' s Mom (@troopermylove) February 21, 2018
Wow, this looks bad on CNN, not the other way around. pic.twitter.com/OXFkaNftKd
— Tif 🕆 ❤ (@simplyorganicT) February 21, 2018
This is a new low. And I thought you were useless before...
— Cameron (@twittposter) February 21, 2018
CNN should be completely ashamed and apologize for the way they treated this nice woman. Instead of explaining his position to her, this "objective" reporter attacked her mercilously. Good for her for standing up to him as well as she did.
— Tim Strickland (@MyConservatism) February 21, 2018
Hilariously, CNN itself appears to have been similarly conned into covering an event organized by the Kremlin, as the network sent reporters to cover (and openly gush over) an anti-Trump rally in New York City on Nov. 12, 2016 that was spearheaded by Russians.
Oops.
Far down in their article, CNN added that “Trump supporters were not the only people duped by the Internet Research Agency. As CNN has previously reported, Black Lives Matter activists and Muslim groups were also targeted." However, CNN has yet to release video footage of their reporters showing up to BLM activists’ houses and accusing them of being in bed with the Kremlin.
That privilege, apparently, is reserved only for Trump supporters.