Sebastian Gorka, a national security aide to President Donald Trump, is a "purveyor of spin," according to CNN host Chris Cuomo during a Monday interview over the president's tweets about his immigration order.
Cuomo noted that Trump's staff said to stop calling his immigration order a "travel ban," then Trump himself called it that in early Monday tweets.
"It is a ban. He likes that it's a ban … why play the games?" Cuomo asked Gorka Monday on CNN's "New Day."
"You are the purveyor of spin because that was your message, that it wasn't a ban, and it is untrue," Cuomo said to Gorka.
"I'm not going to fall into the trap of us being spin-meisters when CNN has been one of the greatest purveyors of fake news," Gorka responded during the CNN interview.
"The fact is it's been the same since the beginning, from the first EO (executive order) to the second EO, it's one thing, Chris. It's about protecting Americans," Gorka said.
Gorka said the order is not a religious ban, and listed Indonesia and Egypt that would be on it if it were. "If we had some dark, dread ulterior motive, then those are the first two nations you would put on the list, not the seven nations that the Obama White House identified as greatest concern."
The CNN host said that Trump's message about a ban "sends an ugly message" to the U.S. Muslim community, but Gorka responded, "What you've just spun is classic fake news."
The president's tweets are not official policy statements, Gorka said. "It's social media. You know the difference, right?"
Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post slammed Gorka Monday regarding Trump's tweets. "I have zero sympathy for President Trump's aides who choose to remain in the White House and lie to the American people," she said, according to the Post.
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