‘You’re Just Trolling’: CNN’s Stelter Grills Newsmax Chief for Citing Hillary Clinton in Refusal to Call Trump’s Election Loss

CNN’s Brian Stelter had an intense back-and-forth with Newsmax CEO and Trump ally Chris Ruddy, much of which revolved around Newsmax’s refusal to acknowledge President Donald Trump’s apparent defeat in the 2020 Election.

Ruddy appeared on Reliable Sources, where he said Trump is “not interested in conceding at this time,” and Newsmax won’t call the election for Joe Biden because of the GOP’s disputes with the vote count in multiple battleground states. Stelter countered that the election decision desks have calculated its mathematically impossible for Trump to win now, so he asked Ruddy “do you have a decision desk?”

“We use Decision Desk HQ for our data,” Ruddy answered, which prompted Stelter to note that they called the election for Biden days ago.

“I am listening to Hillary Clinton,” Ruddy went on. “She said in August that Joe Biden shouldn’t concede under any circumstances.”

“You’re just trolling,” Stelter responded before asking if Ruddy is angling to form a post-presidency business arrangement with Trump. This segued into the president’s gripes with Fox News, with Ruddy bashing the network for how they handled their Florida and Arizona result calls.

“Fox has a great decision desk,” Stelter said. “I respect their decision desk. They don’t do it like that. They don’t play games like that, Chris.”

This was a recurring topic throughout the conversation, for later on, Ruddy touted Newsmax’s election audience, which caused Stelter to say “If you’re a major player in cable news, you’ve got a responsibility to stop airing this bogus voter fraud stuff… Why is this election denialism airing on your network, Chris?”

The discussion went on from there with Stelter and Ruddy further locking horns over the “bogus voter fraud lies” Newsmax allows from its commentators. Stelter also accused Ruddy of trying to tap into the anti-media anger held by Trump supporters.

Watch above, via CNN.