President Donald Trump slammed CNN Thursday night in a tweet that included a claim that a Parkland shooting survivor ‘quit’ the network’s town hall over a ‘scripted question’.
‘”School shooting survivor says he quit @CNN Town Hall after refusing scripted question.” Just like so much of CNN, Fake News. That’s why their ratings are so bad! MSNBC may be worse,’ Trump tweeted.
The president was referring to the claim made by Colton Haab, 17, a member of the Junior ROTC who shielded students with Kevlar vests while Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was under attack from gunman Nikolas Cruz.
President Donald Trump slammed CNN Thursday night in a tweet that included a claim that Parkland shooting survivor Colton Haab (right) ‘quit’ the network’s town hall over a ‘scripted question’
‘”School shooting survivor says he quit @CNN Town Hall after refusing scripted question.” Just like so much of CNN, Fake News. That’s why their ratings are so bad! MSNBC may be worse,’ Trump tweeted
On Tucker Carlson Tonight on Thursday, Haab (right) said he was provided with a question that was not his own words
Haab said he decided not to attend the televised meeting after the network rejected a question he wanted to ask and presented him with one of their own.
‘CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions and it ended up being all scripted,’ Haab told Miami’s WPLG-TV.
On Tucker Carlson Tonight on Thursday, Haab said he was provided with a question that was not his own words.
‘They had taken what I had wrote and what I had briefed on and talked about, and they actually wrote the question for me,’ Haab said.
Haab said that’s why he decided not to attend the town hall.
‘Originally, I had thought that it was going to be more of my own question and my own say. And then it turned out to be more of just a script,’ Haab told Carlson.
‘And [the producer] had actually said that over the phone, that I needed to stick to the script.’
The president was referring to the claim made by Haab, 17, a member of the Junior ROTC who shielded students with Kevlar vests while Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was under attack from gunman Nikolas Cruz
Haab said he decided not to attend the televised meeting after the network rejected a question he wanted to ask and presented him with one of their own. CNN claimed that Haab’s father withdrew his name from participation before the forum began (Pictured, Haab’s questions)
CNN has denied scripting questions for Wednesday night’s town hall meeting on gun control and safety with survivors of the Parkland massacre.
The network released a statement on Thursday morning refuting Haab’s allegation.
It read: ‘There is absolutely no truth to this. CNN did not provide or script questions for anyone in last night’s town hall, nor have we ever.
‘After seeing an interview with Colton Haab, we invited him to participate in our town hall along with other students and administrators from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School,’ the statement continued.
‘Colton’s father withdrew his name from participation before the forum began, which we regretted but respected. We welcome Colton to join us on CNN today to discuss his views on school safety.’
CNN’s communications team were also quick to respond to Trump’s tweet on Thursday.
‘There is absolutely no truth to this story — and we can prove that. CNN did not provide or script questions for anyone in last night’s town hall, nor have we ever. Those are the facts. #FactsFirst,’ the network’s communications team replied.
Haab said was planning to ask about school safety, and the possibility of using veterans as armed security guards in schools, but the questions were rejected by CNN.
CNN aired the town hall on the Florida school shooting that included Florida Senators Marco Rubio (right) and Bill Nelson. It was moderated by CNN anchor Jake Tapper (left), and students and parents asked questions about gun control and school safety
The network released a statement on Thursday morning that read: ‘There is absolutely no truth to this. CNN did not provide or script questions for anyone in last night’s town hall, nor have we ever’
After allegedly being told he had to ask a scripted question, Haab decided not to attend the town hall.
‘I don’t think that it’s going get anything accomplished. It’s not gonna ask the true questions that all the parents and teachers and students have,’ Haab said.
Many GOP members have accused survivors of the Parkland shooting to be crisis actors.
A video on YouTube that became the number 1 trending clip on the site claimed that 17-year-old shooting survivor David Hogg was a ‘crisis actor’
The video regurgitates a Californian news broadcast from summer 2017 which shows Hogg describing how a friend of his got into an argument with a lifeguard on the beach.
A keen student journalist, Hogg, who was 16 at the time, said he started filming when his friend and the lifeguard got into an altercation.
The teenager and his family moved to Florida from California, where they had lived for years, in 2014.
He shared the video on his own YouTube channel where it gathered hundreds of views and attracted the attention of a local CBS channel which then filmed a segment on the fight.
Because it was taken six months before the shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and was filmed in a different state, conspiracy theorists deduced that it was proof Hogg is an actor who has been hired to speak around the country.
CNN aired a town hall on the Florida school shooting that included Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Bill Nelson (D-FL) and the NRA’s Dana Loesch and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel.
Rubio (left) was called ‘pathetically weak’ by a victim’s father, Fred Guttenberg (right), for refusing to support an assault weapon ban during Town Hall meeting with Florida massacre victims and families
Also in attendance at the town hall meeting were he NRA’s Dana Loesch (right) and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel (left)
Moderated by CNN anchor Jake Tapper, students and parents asked questions about gun control and school safety.
During the town hall, Rubio received a chorus of boos when he said that a ban on assault weapons would not have prevented the fatal shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
One of the first parents to take the stage was Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed after being shot in the back as she ran away from the shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, on Valentine’s Day.
‘Your comments this week and those of our president are pathetically weak. Look at me and tell me you will do something about guns,’ the bereaved father implored.
‘Were guns a factor?’
Rubio did say that yes – guns were a factor, but insisted that an all-out ban on assault and semi-automatic weapons was not the answer.
He said his reason for not supporting the ban is because it would outlaw roughly 200 types of guns – assault rifles – while the purchase of over 2,000 types of ‘nearly identical’ guns would still be legal.