‘Facts First’: CNN Airs Real-Time Graphics Designed to Rebut Sarah Sanders Climate Report Criticism

A curious thing happened while CNN was airing Tuesday’s White House Press Briefing. While Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was defending President Donald Trump’s criticism of the climate report his own administration published last week, CNN placed real-time graphics ostensibly designed to rebut the critical comments made by Sanders.

It was a small but noteworthy detail that is certain to anger the White House but please CNN’s most loyal viewers. The graphics were titled with the cable news latest marketing slogan “Facts First” emblazoned across the top.  Beneath that title were bullet points that supported the climate report, which was buried on a very slow news post-Thanksgiving Friday.

These graphics came up after Sanders was asked by CBS News’ Steven Portnoy about President Trump not feeling a responsibility “to lead either in this country or in the world on climate change and preventing the calamity that your administration forecasts.”

Sanders answered:

“The president is certainly leading on what matters most in this process and that’s on having clean air and clean water. The United States continues to be a leader on that front. Even Obama’s undersecretary for science didn’t believe the radical conclusions of the report that was released and you have to look at the fact that this report is based on the most extreme model scenario, which contradicts long-established trends. Modeling the climate is an extremely complicated science that is never exact. The biggest thing we can do is focused on having the cleanest air and water and the president is leading on that front.”

The bullet points read: “Climate Change report involved 300 scientists, 13 federal agencies;  Co-Author: Not paid for report; Open for review & transparency before publishing.”

While the bullet points didn’t align specifically with Sanders’ comments, it is an interesting gambit made by CNN producers, and almost certainly the result of a high-level executive conversation designed to deal with what administrative critics see as irresponsible hyperbole and occasional falsehoods promoted by the White House communications team.

Watch the clip above, courtesy of CNN.