(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) CNN, the leftist news network, mixed up former President Barack Obama with Osama bin Laden, the mass murderer and founder of the terrorist organization al Qaeda.
The offensive gaffe occurred on Friday’s episode of CNN News Central with liberal host Boris Sanchez as he reported on President Donald Trump’s use of Guantanamo Bay to temporarily house some of the most violent criminal illegal aliens.
A CNN on-air graphic read “OBAMA BIN LADEN ASSOCIATE: ABU ZUBAYDAH,” mistakenly conflating the former Democrat president’s last name with that of the late terrorist.
Sanchez, who did not immediately respond to Headline USA’s request for comments, did not repeat the gaffe, according to the New York Post, which first reported the gaffe.
The embarrassing gaffe comes years after several fact-checkers rushed to debunk clearly false social media claims that Obama and bin Laden were the same person.
For instance, Reuters wrote on June 15, 2021, that “Bin Laden was born in 1957 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, while Obama was born in 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii.” It also reported that “the two men also look clearly different, visible in Reuters photographs.”
The outlet added, “VERDICT False. Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden are clearly not the same person.”
Similarly, CNN cynically scolded Trump’s “dangerous bin Laden conspiracy theory,” publishing a so-called fact-check in October 2020 to discredit some of his alleged social media posts.
“On Tuesday, Trump retweeted a post from an account linked to QAnon, a collective of online conspiracists, which has since been suspended,” CNN claimed. “The tweet alleged ‘Biden and Obama may have had Seal Team 6 killed,’ Osama Bin Laden was still alive, and that the man killed in the Obama-directed raid lead by Seal Team 6 was actually a body double. Later that night, Trump retweeted a post claiming top Obama administration officials colluded to bring bin Laden from Iran to Pakistan for ‘Obama’s trophy kill.’”
Countering the alleged Trump posts, CNN pontificated, “Facts First: Both of these theories are baseless and play into Trump’s trend of casting false aspersions on the legacy of his predecessor.”
It remains unclear whether CNN, a self-proclaimed champion of fact-checking, will correct its embarrassing conspiracy-laden blunder.
