CNN's Jake Tapper said NBC's excuse for passing on Ronan Farrow's bombshell story detailing allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Harvey Weinstein "seems like a real lie to me."

Tapper made the comments during an interview with Farrow on Wednesday.



Farrow maintains that he had an NYPD audio recording of Weinstein confessing to groping one woman and had also secured several interviews with three women who said Weinstein made unwanted advances.



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Farrow, who once hosted an afternoon program on MSNBC, took the story first to NBC News, but the network decided against running the story.



"An NBC source told ‘The Daily Beast,’ quote, 'He brought NBC News early reporting on Weinstein that didn’t meet the standard to go forward with the story. It was nowhere close to what ultimately ran. At that time, he didn’t have one accuser willing to go on the record or identify themselves. The story he published is radically different than what he brought to NBC News,' " Tapper read on the air to Farrow.



"That seems like a real lie to me," the anchor continued. "My understanding is while the story was at NBC, you had three named women, the full NYPD audio and every one of the quoted executives and employees that you referenced earlier in your story, you had them all. What’s the truth here?”



“Look, Jake, you understand this, these are human rights abuses, as you said," Farrow replied. "These are women coming forward with a very, very hard set of stories and I really want the focus to be on them and what they did and continuing their fight."



"The media piece of this is a conversation that can unfold over time," Farrow continued. "I’ve already spoken as of last night on 'The Rachel Maddow Show.' I was confronted with a question I didn’t expect and answered it honestly."



"As I understand it now, NBC is no longer claiming that I brought this story to them," he added. "It was assigned at NBC, they’ve talked about how long it was there and the fact that there was a lot while it was there. I truly do think it’s very important for us to stay focused on the women here.”



NBC News was criticized one year ago for allowing The Washington Post to scoop the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that contained audio of Donald Trump Donald John TrumpUS reimposes UN sanctions on Iran amid increasing tensions Jeff Flake: Republicans 'should hold the same position' on SCOTUS vacancy as 2016 Trump supporters chant 'Fill that seat' at North Carolina rally MORE in 2004 bragging about groping women without consent in graphic detail.

It was never determined how the Post got the explosive tape from the show, which is produced by NBC.

Farrow eventually took the story to The New Yorker magazine, which published the explosive story earlier this week.