Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday said she is "extremely disappointed" in CNN anchor Anderson Cooper
for attacking her on the air Tuesday when she was trying to help Orlando shooting victims and their families.
"Anderson was filming in front of the hospital where people were clinging for their lives," Bondi said Wednesday on the
"Len Berman and Todd Schnitt in the Morning" show on WOR in New York.
Bondi said she was meeting with victims and family members of the shooting at a gay nightclub that left 49 dead and 53 injured when she was asked by CNN to appear with Cooper to discuss charity scams and price-gouging by a funeral home. She agreed, she said, since Cooper has a large audience.
But following a couple of minutes of discussion on that subject, Cooper began attacking Bondi over her office's previous battles against legalizing same-sex marriage in the state.
"There's a time and place for everything, but yesterday wasn't the time nor the place," Bondi said. "Anderson Cooper is the champion for the LGBT community, and he could have been helping people yesterday. … I was extremely disappointed in that."
Instead, Bondi said, Cooper only encouraged "anger and hate" and possibly made families not trust her to help them. The interview also caused her to get hate emails and texts, she said.
When CNN posted the clip, they cut out the part about trying to help victims and played up only Cooper's takedown of her, Bondi said.
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