Authored by Ben Sellers via Headline USA,
Since last year's corporate takeover of CNN's parent company, Warner Brothers, by Paramount Skydance and its Trump-friendly CEO, David Ellison, the notoriously left-slanted network has been braced for the inevitable fallout.
A humiliating on-air mistake that involved quoting a fake member of Congress may be just the catalyst needed for some heavy-handed house-cleaning.
On Wednesday, "CNN This Morning" anchor Audie Cornish shared a series of social-media statements from GOP insiders who claimed to have been in contact with AWOL Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
The roundup included statements from spokespeople for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., as well as former McConnell campaign adviser Scott Jennings, himself a regular CNN panelist.
"He's still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 20 minutes," Jennings wrote Tuesday in an X post.
Many found the "trust me" posts to be unconvincing amid mounting speculation that McConnell may be braindead, if not altogether deceased, following a June 14 medical emergency, and a growing clamor for proof-of-life evidence.
Jennings's post spawned several imitators, also claiming to have spoken to McConnell on a disparate array of unlikely topics.
Among the dubious claims was one from the spoof account of fake lawmaker Rep. Jack Kimble, representing California's 54th district (it currently has only 52).
"We talked for just shy of 45 minutes," the post said, following a familiar template.
"He's so sharp," it continued. "Just like always he let me do all of the talking. He's a great listener. After that we prayed silently for awhile and had a staring contest. Just like always, he beat me."
Kimble's prank drew positive responses from both sides of the aisle.
Professional Trump hater George Conway, who recently lost his bid to be a Democrat congressman from New York, wrote, "You are my favorite Congressman."
Meanwhile, Brendan Carr, a Trump ally and current chair of the Federal Communications Commission, seemed to take particular note of the allegations that CNN was exposing its left-wing biases once again, writing "oof" on a post that was commenting on the subject.
Cornish corrected the record on Thursday's broadcast, stating "Obviously we should not have done that, and we regret the error."
According to the New York Post, the parody Kimble account claims to be "the brainchild of a Chicago school teacher." The account, launched in 2009, has previously fooled the Washington Post and the Huffington Post website.
Kimble also has a book for sale on Amazon, titled Detective Jesus No. 1: Thou Shalt Not Kill.
Kimble claims in his X biography to be the co-sponsor of Poe's Law, which the Post described as "a reference to the internet adage that parodies of extreme political views are often mistaken for genuine statements unless clearly marked as satire."