'Cool to be mean': MTG slammed on CNN after sharing edited confrontation to stir MAGA base

'Cool to be mean': MTG slammed on CNN after sharing edited confrontation to stir MAGA base

A reporter clapped back Thursday at firebrand Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who scolded the reporter for wearing a mask during an interview in a video the congresswoman shared to social media.

Shira Stein, Washington correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle, joined CNN anchor Jake Tapper on his show "The Lead" on Thursday afternoon to discuss the dust-up earlier this month.

In a video of the scolding, Greene can be heard telling Stein, "I'm putting this video out just to make it aware for people that are going to watch this video that a reporter with a mask on in 2025 is arguing for an overpriced, ridiculous piece of property that Nancy Pelosi herself wanted a $200 million earmark to continue to fund."

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Tapper confirmed Greene shared the video out on social media, and noted that Stein wears a mask because she's immunocompromised after suffering a stroke in 2022. When Stein told Greene about her condition, Greene apologized.

"But for some reason, that apology was not included in what Marjorie Taylor Greene posted online," Tapper noted.

Stein told Tapper she wears the mask in certain situations, depending on the number of people in a room.

But she stressed her issue with the encounter wasn't about the mask at all.

"What happened is Marjorie Taylor Greene decided to put this video out online without the full truth, to show her audience that she was anti-mask but not to show the part where she apologized for my health struggles and not the part where she said that she respected the fact that I wore a mask because I'm immunocompromised and I had a stroke," she said.

"And that's sort of the issue writ large—is sort of: what is the truth? What are the facts that people are getting?" said Stein.

Later in the segment, Tapper showed a clip of the White House's Rapid Response team sharing the clip on social media with laughing emojis.

"Like they're laughing at you. That's the rapid response," Tapper noted.

Stein said a few people jabbed her over wearing a mask and calling her a Democrat for doing so, but that she also heard from a good amount of people, "thank you for talking about this. Thank you for showing that it's not about the mask."

Instead, she said, "It is about attacks on journalism. It is about attacks on individual journalists — not just folks who work at CNN or The Associated Press and The New York Times — but journalists who work at local newspapers like I do."

She warned, "The truth is not getting out there" — they're only hearing the clip from Greene, not the full scope of their encounter.

Tapper called it "telling" that Greene wouldn't post the full interaction, and feared it's "cool to be mean, which I really worry about for our society going forward."

Watch the clip below or at this link.