Update: FDA Denies Trump/Fox News Directive, Can’t or Won’t Explain Email

There was much speculation earlier today that the Trump administration had directed federal agencies to switch their “news monitors” from CNN to Fox News. A Buzzfeed reporter had received a copy of an email that had gone out earlier this week from a listserv connected to the FDA; the email indicated that all monitors in the facility were to be switched and there was nothing to be done about it.

Well, this didn’t sit well with lots of folks on Twitter, who were outraged that the unbiased reporting of CNN would be sacked in favor of Faux News. CNN, too, was miffed, and asked the White House to comment.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a spokesperson for the White House, added to CNN that “it is certainly not White House policy” to mandate television sets in the FDA be tuned into Fox News. Sanders said she was unaware of any such directive being issued from the White House.

The FDA also chimed in, saying, “There was no directive or memorandum from the administration that went out to employees about broadcast news channels displaying on monitors in common areas throughout the FDA’s White Oak campus.”

The central figure in all of this is author of the original email, Christopher Stumphy, an employee at the FDA’s White Oak campus. CNN reports that his email was in response to the angry response of fellow employees who felt it was “particularly odious to be confronted with Fox News telecasts” at the facility.

It remains a mystery why Stumphy indicated the directive came from the administration, as he is avoiding questions from CNN. What’s the FDA hiding?

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