CNN reporter Chris Cuomo was caught sharing a ‘fake news’ story about a 20-year-old who was allegedly “able to buy an AR-15 in five minutes” without a valid driver’s license.

Problem being, it never happened, and the author of the post, Cody Davis, even admits to it within the body of the story.

Oh, there’s no doubt he’s trying to convince you that he could have walked out of the store with an AR-15 in five minutes, but there’s also no doubt that he definitively did not buy the gun. In fact, he didn’t even fill out the paperwork for the background check.

“After he walked me through the paperwork, all five pages of it, I told him I changed my mind and wanted to think more before I bought an AR-15,” Davis wrote of the gun shop salesman. “He told me it wasn’t a problem and listed the store hours if I wanted to come back. I then said thank you and walked back to my car.”

Chris Cuomo, little brother to the much more relevant Andrew of SAFE Act fame, didn’t care about the content of the article. He didn’t care that it was actually posted and thoroughly debunked over two years ago. And he didn’t care about the obvious absurdity of anybody being able to purchase an AR-15 in five minutes.

He just wanted you to think it was true. So he retweeted it.

Hey, @ChrisCuomo from CNN. Saw the article you retweeted: “I WAS ABLE TO BUY AN AR-15 IN 5 MINUTES” Did you see the part where he admits to neither filling out the necessary paperwork (which would initiate the background check) NOR purchasing the AR-15? Weird. pic.twitter.com/wLfaiKCqaM — Chet Cannon (@Chet_Cannon) February 21, 2018

Readers were quick to call out Davis’s post, which makes an assertion that is ultimately proven untrue – the very definition of fake news.

“He stopped the process before the background check and then pretended there wasn’t one,” one reader responded. “What a ******* joke.”

Why we can’t have nice things. (This person did not buy an AR-15, did not fill out any paper work and did not go through the required background checks. He literally looked at a gun, then said, ‘meh, maybe I’ll get it later’ and left before filling out paperwork and purchasing) https://t.co/1kssgx0jSX — Mere Dake-O’Connor (@meredithdake) February 20, 2018

“Your article title is misleading and the article is ridiculous,” another wrote. “The only entity that can determine if you are ‘able’ to purchase a gun is the FBI. In order to determine if you’re ‘able’ to purchase a gun, the FBI requires a background check.”

Despite overwhelming evidence that the author did not do as he claimed, Cuomo doubled down saying the young man had still made a point. Except, he didn’t. He simply lied about the exchange.

Isn’t the point that the kid’s age and lack of ID wasn’t a deterrent? and this isn’t all gun shops. Place I bought my shotgun basically goes farther than law requires and makes judgments about whom to sell to. Point is the system should be better https://t.co/sL1j0hYtTg — Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) February 21, 2018

Wow. Just, wow.

Charles Cooke of the National Review wouldn’t let Cuomo slide on his explanation that promoting a completely fabricated story still proves a larger point.

The point is that the kid lied about buying a gun that he didn’t, and that you are now lying too. — Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) February 21, 2018

As of the time of posting, the original tweet that Cuomo shared with his followers has over 9,000 retweets and 12,000 likes.

That’s quite a bit of influence for a completely fake news story.

Tell Chris Cuomo what you think about him spreading fake anti-gun news stories in the comments section below!