Trump pointed to a clip of CNN's Pamela Brown, who is heard whispering to a participant before asking the woman her thoughts on the debate. | Getty CNN pushes back on Trump’s claim it ‘rigged’ focus group

Despite his constant pronouncements that he does not watch CNN, Donald Trump tweeted about the network again on Monday. This time, he characterized the cable news channel as “the worst” and accused it of rigging a focus group that took place after the second presidential debate.

“Wow, @CNN got caught fixing their ‘focus group’ in order to make Crooked Hillary look better,” Trump tweeted. “Really pathetic and totally dishonest!”


In a retweet from his social media director, Trump pointed to a clip of CNN’s Pamela Brown, who is heard whispering to a participant before asking the woman her thoughts on the debate.

But Brown was not coaching the participants, CNN and the participants themselves say. The focus group participants did not have earpieces or access to a screen in order to know what clip Brown would be referring to, so she was relaying the quotes to them in person.

“The focus group was not able to hear or see the post-debate segment,” a CNN spokeswoman said in a statement. “Brown described the segment in real time so they would know what was being discussed. It’s absurd to think she was coaching the focus group in anyway.”

Hadas Gold contributed to this report.