CNN this weekend repeated the thoroughly debunked lie that President Trump once called the novel coronavirus a “hoax.”

Interestingly enough, the appearance of this lie on the cable news network comes not long after Joe Biden’s presidential campaign released an ad attacking the president over the exact same false charge.

What does it say about CNN when its news coverage is indistinguishable from bogus attack ads released by the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee?

The “hoax” falsehood was repeated this weekend by CNN's Ana Cabrera and Boris Sanchez as they mocked the president for declaring the COVID-19 outbreak a national emergency.

“The president was soaking in the praise at the Rose Garden yesterday for his leadership during the global pandemic,” Sanchez said Saturday evening.

He added sarcastically, “Outside of calling the response to coronavirus a hoax when it resulted in a pandemic, assuring everyone could get tested when they clearly and still cannot, and announcing a national-scale website in a partnership with Google that does not exist, the president has you covered.”

A quick aside: Google has definitely paired with the federal government to combat the COVID-19 crisis, according to even CNN’s own reporting.

Elsewhere that same day, Cabrera and Sanchez went hard after the Trump White House, claiming it is not doing enough to prevent the viral outbreak from getting worse.

“President Trump has been giving regular updates to the public about coronavirus,” said Cabrera, “but — and this is a huge 'but' — the information he gives is not always accurate, and he often downplays the threat and contradicts statements he or his expert advisers have previously said.”

She added, “And yet, despite these inaccuracies, blame-shifting moments, original claims of a hoax, Vice President Mike Pence has been effusive in his praise of the president.”

Elsewhere, Sanchez said the president has “been having rallies with large crowds in which he suggests that this coronavirus epidemic — pandemic — is a hoax perpetrated by Democrats.”

He added later, “[Trump] often downplays the threat, and he contradicts statements he or his own advisers have previously made. Case in point: Two weeks ago, Trump called the response about the gravity of the virus a hoax. It's not.”

Wow, got him, guys.

Later, on Sunday, Cabrera went so far as to blame the president for the viral outbreak.

“The words of an American president during a time of global crisis matter the world over,” she said. “President Trump is trading on the credibility of an office he did not create.”

As she spoke, the on-air headline read, “Trump on coronavirus: From ‘hoax’ to national emergency.”

We have been over this before. In fact, many newsgroups have corrected this lie already, including the Washington Post, CBS News, FactCheck, and, of course, the Washington Examiner.

Here is what Trump actually said about the virus during a campaign rally in late February:

“Now, the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus … one of my people came up to me and said, 'Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.' That didn't work out too well. They couldn't do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. And this is their new hoax.”

To repeat the claim that Trump called the virus a “hoax” requires, at this point, an act of willful maliciousness. Ignorance is no defense, especially for those whose job it is to know better.

It makes sense that the Biden campaign would lie. They have an election to win, after all.

But what is CNN’s excuse?