In a late-night tweet, Donald Trump demanded that Fox News fire national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin after she said she confirmed “key details” of a report in The Atlantic that he has disparaged American military dead as “losers” and “suckers.”
“All refuted by many witnesses. Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting. Never even called us for comment. @FoxNews is gone!” Trump said Friday night.
A spokesperson for the network did not have a comment when reached by TheWrap, but speaking with Neil Cavuto on Saturday, Griffin stood by her reporting and refuted the president’s claim that the network did not call the White House for comment.
“I was in constant contact. John Roberts was working his sources at the White House, I was working my sources. … Deep Throat was an unnamed source. It didn’t make what he said untrue. My sources are not anonymous to me and I doubt they are anonymous to the president,” Griffin said. “I can tell you that my sources are unimpeachable. I feel very confident with what we have reported at Fox. Not every line of The Atlantic article did I confirm, but I would say that most of the descriptions and the quotes in that Atlantic article I did find people who were able to confirm, and so, you know, I feel very confident in my reporting.”
Shortly after the president’s tweet, several reporters and on-air hosts also came to Griffin’s defense, including Fox News’ Bret Baier, who said Griffin was a “great reporter and a total class act“; foreign correspondent Trey Yingst, who tweeted that she “embodies what the industry is built upon. Truth and accountability”; and State Department correspondent Rich Edison, who said she was a “terrific reporter.” ABC News’ Jonathan Karl also commended Griffin for being “an excellent reporter and a class act,” while the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman said Griffin is “one of the best reporters there.”
On Thursday, The Atlantic reported that, among other things, Trump did not attend a Nov. 2018 commemoration of Americans who died in France during World War I because he worried about his hair in the rain and did not think he should be honoring fallen soldiers, saying that the French cemetery was “filled with losers” — a contrast to his official explanation at the time that his “helicopter couldn’t fly” in the rain.
Earlier Friday, Griffin tweeted that two “former sr Trump admin officials” corroborated much of what was reported in The Atlantic. And appearing later that afternoon on “Bill Hemmer Reports,” Griffin added that the officials were with Trump during his 2018 visit to France and that she had confirmed “key details in The Atlantic article and the quotes attributed to the president.”
“The president would say about American veterans, ‘What’s in it for them? They don’t make any money,’” Griffin said one of her sources, a former Trump administration official, told her.
“Regarding the French trip to mark the end of WWI, according to this former official, the president was not in a good mood,” Griffin continued. “French President Macron had said something that made him mad, he questioned why he had to go to two cemeteries. ‘Why do I have to do two?’ His staff explained he could cancel, but he was warned they — they press — are going to kill you for this. The president was mad as a hornet when they did, according to this source.”
The president has repeatedly denied the report, and some current and former aides have also come forward in support of the president to dispute the report.