(CNN's Anderson Cooper and White House deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka.CNN)
An interview between CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and White House deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka took a sharp turn Wednesday amid the ever-expanding controversies surrounding the White House.
The interview initially focused on the 2016 meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer that has dominated headlines since Saturday. A Politico report on Tuesday said White House aides felt "helpless" as the scandal took on a life of its own. But Gorka disputed such a characterization.
"It's laughable, your chyron talked about a 'crisis,'" Gorka told Cooper, responding to a suggestion that the White House was in turmoil. He added: "I actually work in the West Wing, I work in the White House — it is absolutely nothing of the kind. The president is a steam locomotive that can't be stopped. It's just fake news.
"I'm sad to see CNN fall to this," Gorka continued. "I know you want salacious and sensational coverage for your ratings so your corporate sponsors and owners will have more money, but that's not media, that's not reportage. It's just fake news."
(Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Cooper responded by saying he was "just going to ignore the insults" and didn't believe Gorka's comments were going to be helpful to the conversation.
"It's not about you," Gorka replied. "It's about actually having journalism back on TV. Where are the Walter Cronkites of yesteryear. This is just about ratings and money. It's actually quite sad."
Gorka went on to argue that Trump Jr.'s meeting in 2016 warranted no suspicion: "I deny the fact that there's anything here that's untoward. Again, this is an obsessive nine-month campaign."
"I stand by what the president said, and I stand by what his son said," Gorka said. "We are incredibly impressed by Don Jr.'s transparency and the fact that he actually published these emails and said he will cooperate with anybody."
Trump Jr. on Tuesday tweeted transcripts of an email exchange in which the meeting with the Russian lawyer was organized. The emails showed Trump Jr. willing to accept damaging information about Hillary Clinton that was described as "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." The New York Times has said he posted the emails only after it contacted him to say it had acquired them and was planning to publish them.
"Let's be honest though, he only published emails because The New York Times got the emails and was going to publish them, and then he smartly got ahead of it," Cooper said. "And the only reason that this story has lasted so long is because he wasn't transparent from the beginning."