Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani demanded an apology from CNN on Monday, saying the network has “tortured” President Trump for two years over a Russia collusion story that now increasingly appears to have been overblown.
“You guys, on this network, have tortured this man for two years with collusion and nobody has apologized for it,” Giuliani said when appearing on “Cuomo Prime Time.” “Before we talk about obstruction, apologize for the overreaction to collusion.”
“Not a chance, not a chance,” host Chris Cuomo immediately responded.
“Of course, you’re not, because you’re not being fair,” Giuliani shot back.
“I’m outraged by the behavior of these networks. Collusion, collusion, collusion,” Giuliani continued. “No collusion, Chris.”
Giuliani then added that channel chief Jeff Zucker, along with the Washington Post and Rep. Adam Schiff, should also apologize for pushing the story.
The comments from Giuliani come two days after Robert Mueller submitted his final report to Attorney General William Barr on Sunday. In a four-page summary provided to Congress, Barr said the key findings concluded that Trump did not knowingly collude with the Kremlin to help win the presidential election in 2016 — strongly suggesting that additional criminal charges against Trump or his family would not be forthcoming.
The “investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” Barr wrote, while also noting that “the Special Counsel states that ‘while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.’”
Though many in conservative media such as Sean Hannity derided the special counsel as a witch hunt just months ago, they promptly pounced on the news this week, calling it a full exoneration of the president, with Hannity himself demanding additional contrition from their network competitors.
“[Rachel Maddow] has profited from these lies to her audience on a spectacular level. Frankly, she and her so-called colleagues, so-called mainstream media, so-called journalists … they should be embarrassed tonight,” Hannity said Monday evening. “They should feel humiliated tonight. They should be apologizing tonight to the American people.”
Reps for Maddow at MSNBC declined to comment.