A CNN panel erupted Monday over the “pizzagate” incident and conspiracy theories, with media analyst Brian Stelter hammering Donald Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany for “going down these fake news rabbit holes.”

Asked if Trump bears some responsibility for future National Security advisor Mike Flynn’s son’s post on Twitter insisting there’s truth behind the claim that Hillary Clinton engaged in a nonexistent child sex trafficking ring operating outside of a Washington, DC pizza shop, McEnany trued to argue that the pizzagate incident is on par with 9/11 truthers.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I do want to emphasize now though: the extreme fringe right wing has nothing to do with mainstream right wing, just like 9/11 truthers didn’t really have anything to do with the mainstream left wing,” McEnany argued. “This is a fringe element of the right just like we have a fringe element of the left.”

CNN host Erin Burnett noted that Flynn’s son is an active member of the Trump transition team, even maintaining his own transition email address. She then asked McEnany about a different child pornography conspiracy pushed in a tweet by Flynn himself. McEnany tried to argue there was some truth to the claim Flynn pushed:

“Let me point out though, what he was suggesting actually had some basis in truth there’s a man named Jeffrey Epstein who was convicted of child pornography, Bill Clinton took several flights with this individual and there were some real questions about why these flights were not on the books, what happened on these flights—“

“Are we really going to do this?” Stelter interjected. “Are we really going to go down these fake news rabbit holes?”

McEnany later argued that the left is ultimately responsible for pushing fake news because Democrats labeled Trump as a racist and xenophobe “with no basis in truth.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“If we want to talk about conspiracy theories and out there outlandish, gossipy sort of stories, your party’s responsible for it,” she argued.

Watch the video below, via CNN:

