CNN anchor Anderson Cooper threw cold water on Donald Trump Jr.’s claim that Cooper staged a shot of himself standing in waist-deep Hurricane Florence floodwaters to make President Trump look bad.
Trump Jr. on Sunday tweeted a photo of Cooper submerged to his waist as his camera crew stood nearby in water just past their calves.
“It’s a shame that CNN’s ratings are down 41%. What’s worse is there’s a simple solution that they refuse to accept. Stop Lying to try to make @realDonaldTrump look bad,” the president’s son wrote on his Twitter account.
It was retweeted more than 8,000 times and sparked a number of memes.
Cooper spent the final 10 minutes of his “AC/360” broadcast Monday debunking Trump Jr.’s assertion.
“I debated whether I should even respond tonight to the president’s son,” Cooper said. “I know he considers himself an outdoorsman and pays a lot of money to be led to wildlife in Africa that he then kills. But I’m not sure if he’s actually been to a hurricane or a flood. I didn’t see him down in North Carolina over the last few days helping out, lending a hand, but I’m sure he was doing something important besides just tweeting lies.”
Cooper said the photo comes from his coverage of Hurricane Ike in Texas from Sept. 13, 2008, not Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, and showed clips from the broadcast.
“For those who think I was kneeling or faking the water level or making it look worse than it was or standing in some sort of a hole, this is an area where people had been trapped on the roofs of their homes by water,” he said. “Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who I actually interviewed during this broadcast, called it the largest rescue and recovery operation in Texas state history.”
The clips show Cooper saying that the water was receding, but rather than stand on higher ground with his crew, he wanted to stay out of the way of rescue vehicles that were using a road where the water wasn’t that high.
“I also wanted to show people how deep the water was and how dangerous it is for anyone driving,” he said.
Cooper also pointed out that the camerman, Doug Thomas, died in September 2017.
“I don’t expect the president’s son to ever admit he was wrong or one of the president’s former advisers or frankly anyone else who’s retweeted these pictures,” Cooper said. “But I at least thought that they and you should know the truth.”
Trump Jr. responded to Cooper Tuesday on Twitter.
“If you’re going to spend 10 minutes crying about a meme you may want to make sure you’re actually right. Good article as it shows exactly what CNN does daily to sell false truth,” he said.