CNN’s Abby Phillip Apologizes After Claiming ISIS Terror Suspects Targeted Mamdani, in Latest Embarrassment for the Network

An anti-Trump CNN personality, Abby Phillip, apologized after she came under pressure after she claimed that two men accused of throwing bombs during an ISIS-inspired attack were targeting New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The embarrassing apology comes after CNN retracted an online post and removed an offensive paragraph from a news article, which mischaracterized the attack as a springtime outing.Two men, Emi Balat, 18, and Ibrahim Kayumi, 19, are accused of throwing makeshift explosive devices outside Gracie Mansion, where a group of about 20 demonstrators protesting “the Islamic takeover of New York” – led by pardoned January 6 ex-convict Jake Lang – were being confronted by more than 100 far-left counter-protesters, surrounded by a large police presence. The New York City Police Commissioner, Jessica Tisch, told reporters that the makeshift bombs could have killed people and that the suspects admitted to being inspired by ISIS. Law enforcement officials say they believe the bomb throwers were targeting the anti-Islamist demonstration, and law enforcement officials say one of the suspects said he wanted to carry out an attack “even bigger” than the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. During a segment on Tuesday night, Ms. Phillip said, “Two Republicans say Muslims don’t belong here after an attempted terror attack against New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and the House speaker, Mike Johnson, says nothing — really — to condemn those comments.”Conservative commentators criticized Ms. Phillip for misleading viewers about the plot days after the incident, unlike in a breaking news situation, when details are not always immediately clear.“This just can’t be a simple mistake. This broadcast is days after the attack and if you’re a newscaster, you have willfully misinformed yourself and then your viewers,” conservative commentator Mary Katharine Ham wrote on X. A Fox News law enforcement contributor, Paul Mauro, wrote, “CNN, have you ever heard the one about when you’re in a hole, there’s a thing you should stop doing? Wow.”The editor-in-chief of the Daily Wire, Brent Scher, said it is “amazing that CNN started and ended the day completely botching this story.”“To follow the news for a living and say this days later—when your own news organization has already been embroiled in a controversy over the story!—is pretty incredible,” wrote Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review. On Wednesday morning, Ms. Phillip wrote on X, “I want to correct something I said last night. The bombs thrown in New York City over the weekend by ISIS inspired attackers was [sic] thrown into a crowd of anti-Muslim protestors and not specifically targeted at Mayor Mamdani. That wording was inaccurate and I didn’t catch it ahead of time. I apologize for the error.”A Fox News contributor, Joe Concha, shared the tweet and noted that Ms. Phillip appeared to be blaming her producers, writing, “What Abby is saying is her producers wrote her script, put it in prompter, and she didn’t preview it ahead of time despite having ample time to do so as any decent host does. Hence, ‘didn’t catch it in time.’”The blunder occurred roughly 12 hours after CNN came under withering criticism over a social media post and an article that many users said were sympathetic to the suspects.On Tuesday morning, CNN shared the article about the suspects on its X page with the caption, “Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather.”“But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside the home of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. After the backlash, the network deleted the tweet and said that it “failed to reflect the gravity of the incident, thereby breaching the editorial standards we require for all our reporting.”The network’s effort to blame the social media team (a common tactic at legacy news organizations, where social media teams are downstream from more highly valued personnel) failed when social media users began to share screenshots of the original article — with a lead byline by a writer with they/them pronouns — that showed that the social media text was copied from the story itself, and CNN later updated the article to change the language. The back-to-back fiascos related to the same story come as staffers at CNN are bracing for the likely takeover of the network by Paramount Skydance, which is controlled by the Trump-aligned Ellison family. Staffers at CNN have anonymously shared their fears that the CEO of Skydance, David Ellison, will take the network in a direction that is friendlier to President Trump. Mr. Ellison told CNBC last week that he wants CNN to maintain its editorial independence, but said it should be a network that speaks to “70 percent” of Americans and not to the far left.

CNN’s Abby Phillip Apologizes After Claiming ISIS Terror Suspects Targeted Mamdani, in Latest Embarrassment for the Network

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