On Monday night, Anderson Cooper ripped into Donald Trump Jr. for spreading a misleading photo of the CNN host in order to falsely claim that Cooper was trying to make a political statement against his father — President Donald Trump.

Political observers might’ve noticed recently that the president’s son not only mocked Brett Kavanaugh‘s sexual assault accuser, he also posted this picture of Cooper — suggesting he was kneeling in the floodwaters of Hurricane Florence to make his dad “look bad.”

It’s a shame that CNN’s ratings are down 41%. What’s worse is there’s a simple solution that they refuse to accept. Stop Lying to try to make @realDonaldTrump look bad. https://t.co/O3XyWchsJh pic.twitter.com/BCUCxKnOvO — Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 16, 2018

There’s just one teensy little problem: that photo is completely out of context. That picture was taken when Cooper was doing coverage of Hurricane Ike 10 years ago.

Cooper, on Monday night, replied with fury:

“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. I debated whether I should even respond to the president’s son. I know he believes himself to be an outdoorsman and pays a lot of money to be led to wildlife in Africa that he then kills, but I’m not sure if he’s ever actually been to a hurricane or flood. I didn’t see him down in North Carolina in the last few days helping out, lending a hand, but I’m sure he was busy doing something important besides just tweeting lies.”

As Cooper recalled the devastation Ike caused in Texas, he called it “frankly idiotic” to presume that he was kneeling in water to make it look deeper than it really was. He also took viewers on a step-by-step rundown of how he and his crew covered the area back then despite the complicated conditions they had to deal with.

“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,” Cooper said. “But I at least thought that they and you should know the truth.”

Watch above, via CNN.

[Image via screengrab]

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