‘We Were Stunned!’ CNN Anchor Rips ‘Cringeworthy Heckling’ At Chaos-Wracked Biden Admin Briefing
CNN anchor Pamela Brown was “stunned” by what she called “cringeworthy heckling” at a briefing by Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the heels of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
Blinken appeared Thursday morning for a press conference at the State Department, access to which is closely controlled. But activist/journalists Sam Husseini and Max Blumenthal were granted access, and disrupted Blinken’s presser with repeated shouts and diatribes about civilian and journalist deaths in Gaza, until security stepped in.
On Thursday’s edition of CNN News Central, Brown and CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt were covering the briefing when all Hell broke loose, and reacted with shock:
PAMELA BROWN: All right. So that’s what happened as this press conference started. I want to bring it up. And Alex, we were both sitting here pretty stunned, frankly! This is supposed to be a press conference with a room of journalists. Those were activists who were interrupting the secretary of state when he initially was thinking the press and talking about the Israeli Hamas deal.
ALEX MARQUARDT: Yeah, I think it’s really surprising. A lot of our viewers will have seen protests on Capitol Hill, for example, during confirmation hearings. But it’s very rare for something like that to happen at the State Department.
I’m over there all the time in that briefing room, and you need to have a reason to be at the State Department, need to have an appointment. You need to have press accreditation to come and go. So it’s it’s unclear who those people were. So I think there’s there’s a real security question there. And in terms of like who gets to come into the building.
I think it also speaks to the incredible anger at the Biden administration, both domestically and internationally, for for the support that they have have given to Israel.
…
PAMELA BROWN: And we have, I think, video of another angle of what happened there in the press room at the State Department was watch.
SAM HUSSEINI: You know about Israel’s nuclear weapons. Everybody from the ICJ. I was sitting here quietly and now I’m being manhandled by 2 or 3 people! You pontificate about a free press!
You pontificate about a free press. You are hurting me! You are hurting me! You are hurting me!
I am asking questions after being told by Matt Miller that he will not answer my questions. And I’m asking questions!
UNIDENTIFIED: Respect the process. Please sir, respect the process.
SAM HUSSEINI: What was the thing? I was at the point of the op ed, the May 31st statement to block to the ICJ orders. You block the ICJ orders.
UNIDENTIFIED: Please sir, respect the process.
UNIDENTIFIED: Respect the process! Respect the process while everybody, everybody from the from the international from Amnesty International to the ICJ saying that Israel is doing genocide and extermination. You’re telling me to respect the process. Criminal! Why aren’t you in The Hague? Why aren’t you in The Hague?
PAMELA BROWN: Wow.
Watch above via CNN News Central.
