Donald Trump has been on a tear against the media in recent days, calling out most major media outlets for “lies,” “fake news,” and “phony news.” But the president has reserved his worst venom for CNN, which has been caught in what he is calling a “lie” that the network won’t retract.

CNN is being torn apart from within based on their being caught in a major lie and refusing to admit the mistake. Sloppy @carlbernstein, a man who lives in the past and thinks like a degenerate fool, making up story after story, is being laughed at all over the country! Fake News — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2018

Last month, CNN reported based on anonymous sources that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was willing to testify that Mr. Trump knew in advance that Donald Trump Jr. was going to meet with Russians to get dirt on Hillary Clinton — a claim that the president and his son both vehemently deny. However in the past week, one of the sources — Cohen lawyer Lanny Davis — admitted that he didn’t know that this was true, and his client told federal prosecutors under oath as part of a plea deal that he didn’t know that, either. In addition, Mr. Davis was identified by name in CNN’s story as having no comment on the report — a lie given what he now says.

Seems pretty cut and dried. If Bernstein isn’t lying, why won’t he admit his error?

CNN has had plenty of other opportunities to admit they made mistakes. The Daily Caller compiled 20 of them:

CNN retracted a story in June of 2016 claiming that former Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci was under investigation by Congress for his alleged ties to Russia. The story relied on one anonymous congressional source and CNN apologized to Scaramucci for the error. Three CNN reporters ended up resigning from the company over the botched report. […] CNN reported in December of 2017 that Donald Trump Jr. received special access to documents stolen by WikiLeaks on Sept. 4, 2016. However, Donald Trump Jr. actually was emailed about the documents on Sept. 14, 2016 — a day after they were already available to the general public. CNN updated the report but still has not explained how two sources managed to give them the wrong date on the email. […] On June 6, 2017, CNN reported that former FBI director James Comey would contradict President Donald Trump’s claim that he was not under investigation. When the time came for Comey to release his opening statement for his congressional testimony, he actually ended up confirming Trump’s account. “This article was published before Comey released his prepared opening statement. The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published,” CNN corrected. […] After the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter accused Republican congressmen of being “scared” to come on the network to debate gun control. Anchor Chris Cuomo specifically called out Texas Senator Ted Cruz for not rising to the challenge. As it turns out, Sen. Cruz had done a 15 minute interview with CNN earlier that day. He blasted the network for airing “NONE” of his interview and noted that he had previously done three town hall debates on CNN with Senator Bernie Sanders. […] Multiple CNN reporters ridiculously speculated about the whereabouts of Melania Trump after a scheduled kidney surgery and then denied responsibility for any conspiracy theories about the first lady. Media reporter Brian Stelter led his “Reliable Sources” newsletter on June 3rd with the headline “Melania M.I.A,” and insisted the first lady’s whereabouts were a “mystery” because she had not been seen in public since May 10. While Stelter blamed random internet commenters for specific conspiracy theories about plastic surgery or a move back to NYC, CNN repeated such theories in an article and even asked Melania’s spokesperson to comment on them.

How much of this is stupidity, how much is incompetence, and how much is out and out lying? All media outlets make mistakes, some more than others. What makes CNN’s errors so egregious is that the false information seems to always promote a political agenda. Have they ever gotten a story wrong that originally put Trump in a positive light? Has a panel ever imparted wrong information about conservatives or a conservative issue that wasn’t damaging?

CNN promotes itself as an unbiased source of news. A cursory examination of the record gives the lie to that fantasy.