On Sunday, July 2, President Trump tweeted out a meme of himself wrestling WWE Chairman Vince McMahon with the CNN logo over his face. That same day, CNN’s Brian Stelter took to his show Reliable Sources where he and his panel of liberal reporters decried Trump as “dangerous” and a “fascists.” A full week later, Stelter and another stacked panel of journalists were defending CNN’s legally questionable tactics of tracking down the meme creator and threating to reveal his identity. In addition to that, they slammed the outlet’s critics and conflated them with those sending threats of violence to journalists.

Before getting to talking about the memes and CNN’s underhanded methods, they spent a time talking about the very real and disgusting threats of violence against journalists. The way the topics were blended together only served to conflate the real issue of threats of violence with the harsh criticism that CNN receives for spreading fake news. “And I have sensed it here personally here at CNN as well. Partly because of attacks from the President and his allies,” Stelter said of online harassment. “We saw this-this time last week, that the anti-CNN video the President posted.”

“Andrew Kaczynski, of KFILE was able to find the identity of the person, the anonymous user who first posted a version of that video. There was a CNN story saying that we weren't going to share his identity, we weren't going to share his name, partly out of concern that he was going to get threats,” Stelter claimed. He called on Kristen Powers, who agreed that CNN shouldn’t reveal the man’s identity, but defended her initial position of outing him.

Powers was angry that people would dare want him to have his anonymity because he had a history of posting apparently racist content. “And you know, I don’t understand why that person has a so-called right to stay anonymous and do this,” she spat. “You know, what a lot of people were saying is like, well, you have to stay anonymous to express political views. That's not a political view…”

Stelter whined about how #CNNBlackmail became a top trending topic on Twitter and blamed the “alt-right” for its popularity. But that accusation was far from accurate. Both Reason and Vox, outlets from vastly different parts of the political spectrum, were united in their criticism of CNN’s blackmail tactics. Neither of those outlets came anywhere close to fitting the definition of “alt-right.” “News organizations have become obsessed with fighting Trump rather than covering him,” Reason wrote. “What CNN has done is induce some random troll to grovel and apologize for his wrongthink.”

John Avlon, the editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast, decried those that used the hashtag to hammer CNN for pretending to be victims and claimed they were mostly bot accounts. In mocking their outrage, Avlon pretended to speak for them saying:

We're the real victims, we're going to swarm on-- via social media at the very least with real threats to try to create an aura of confusion. And it has to be predicated on a fundamental lie to distract from the original issue, which is the President of the United States tweeting out a meme that shows violence against a news outlet. Then we'll do that and we’ll try to play the victim and get the upper hand. And we’ll use social media swarm tactics to do it.

Again, there was an attempt to link those people legitimately concerned about CNN’s mob family tactics with those making threats of violence.

Unironically, Powers claimed that those arguing CNN infringed on free speech were “inaccurate” because “my free speech is not infringed upon, necessarily, because I get criticized for something.” By saying socially unacceptable things and suffering “social sanction for that, that's not an infringement on your free speech,” she continued. “You are free to say whatever you wanted and you were held accountable for it.” She even admitted that it held true for journalists.

If the media’s freedoms aren’t infringed by criticism, as Powers described, then why is CNN freaking out over the hashtag and airing the segment? The answer is because they’re trying to connect the legitimate problems people have with the network’s out of control coverage with violence.

Stelter believes, or at least pushes the notion, that criticism of CNN and the press, in general, equates to the shutting down of the journalism and free speech. Stelter said so himself after he claimed he wasn’t exaggerating and called CNN’s detractors “media illiterates:”

When politicians disparage real news as fake, or root for the death of newspapers, or when the call reporters names, or when they claim we make up stories and sources they're not trying to improve journalism. They're trying to get rid of it. And they're giving cover to extremists who go even further … These anti-journalism tactics are not aimed at eradicating bias, or improving news coverage, or even creating alternative sources. They’re about eliminating news coverage.

On TV, Stelter plays a champion for the first amendment, the press, and the freedom of speech. But in reality, his constant smears of critics as alt-right, dangerous, fascist, and anti-journalism only serve to chill free speech. And it’s because he and CNN are “not trying to improve journalism … are not aimed at eradicating bias, or improving news coverage…” To use his own words.

Transcript below: