Hurricane Florence: Anderson Cooper shuts down Donald Trump Jr for spreading a conspiracy theory about him

CNN presenter and journalist Anderson Cooper has hit back at Donald Trump Jr and others who claimed that he and the network had doctored footage of him reporting on Hurricane Florence.

The president's son and Lynne Patton, a housing and urban development official in the Trump administration, are among a number of people who have spread conspiracy theories about Cooper, claiming that he had exaggerated the depths of the floodwaters in order to make Donald Trump look bad, further promoting the fake news campaign that the Trump team aims at CNN.

Their dispute is that although Cooper is waist deep in the water the camera crew, who are only a few feet away are only ankle deep.

In a ten-minute response, broadcast live on CNN the 51-year-old reporter lambasted Trump Jr and others for sharing this conspiracy and questioned why they would even dispute such footage, even bringing up claims that his reports on Haiti disaster and the Sandy Hook shooting were fake.

Furthermore, Cooper stated that not only was the footage real it was actually from Hurricane Ike, a storm that hit Texas in 2008.

In the segment, Copper started by saying "I usually let conspiracy theorists go unanswered" before adding:

I’ve covered hurricanes for about 14 years and it really does make me sad to think that anyone would believe that I would try to fake something or overly dramatize a disaster.

The idea that I am kneeling in water to make it look deep is frankly, idiotic.

Cooper then specifically tore into Trump Jr for circulating the false news and even asked where he was during Hurricane Florence.

I didn’t see him down in North Carolina the last few days helping out, lending a hand. But I’m sure he was busy doing something important besides just tweeting lies.

Look, I don’t expect the president’s son to ever admit he was wrong, or one of the president’s former advisers or frankly anyone else who’s retweeted these pictures.

But I at least thought that they and you should know the truth.

He then ended the segment by pointing out that the cameraman who filmed the footage being shared, was audio technician Doug Thomas, who died in September 2017, thus proving the footage could have no way have been from Florence.

You can watch Cooper's entire response in the tweet below.

Hurricane Florence has already claimed the lives of 15 people in North and South Carolina with reports claiming that "the worst is yet to come".

HT The Hill

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