CNN Mixes Up Barack Obama With Osama Bin Laden In Embarrassing Moment

Cracks are starting to show in CNN’s coverage as some of its top talent heads for the door, most notably when producers confused former President Barack Obama with Osama bin Laden during a recent segment.

A late-night chyron on “CNN News Central” blared the headline “OBAMA BIN LADEN ASSOCIATE: ABU ZUBAYDAH,” causing viral clips of the moment to quickly circulate online. The mistake came while anchor Boris Sanchez spoke about interrogation techniques used against Zubaydah, an Al-Qaeda terrorist, while imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.

Sanchez was in the middle of highlighting Zubaydah’s treatment while reporting on President Donald Trump’s recent directive to house dangerous illegal immigrants at the facility. Although the anchor did not stumble over Osama bin Laden’s name, he badly bungled the last name of Zubaydah, clips show.

“Yesterday CNN was talking about Big Balls. Today they’re talking about Obama Bin Laden. Great job guys!” a pro-Trump commentator wrote sarcastically on X. Others faulted the network as part of a broader critique of the legacy media where established anchors are departing for greener, more relevant pastures.

“Is there an internal employee trolling them?” joked one account. Another stated the obvious. “And they wonder why CNN is going out of business.”

“Lol watching the legacy media is basically watching a Monty Python skit at this point,” Clay Thompson wrote.

The Daily Caller found others mocking the network, including one who believed the producers may have intentionally sabotaged its coverage. “That was not a misprint. Shame on whoever did that,” the user wrote.

“CNN is a massive failure!!” another user claimed, while a third blamed “mainstream media clowns” for committing the “Freudian slip of the century.”

President Obama’s legacy is interminably linked to the legacy of Guantanamo Bay. During his eight years in office, he repeatedly promised that the facility would be closed for good, saying its operation runs “contrary to our values” and “undermines our standing in the world.”

Ron DeSantis, who in 2016 served as Chair of the U.S. House Subcommittee on National Security, called Obama’s pledge an effort to achieve “ideological victory” rather than make the U.S. safer.

The Obama administration was able to reduce the facility’s inmate population to 41 from a high of 270, with 197 of the detainees reportedly transferred, repatriated, or resettled, but Guantanamo Bay was ultimately handed over to President Trump.

The unforced error by CNN is another footnote in the network’s downward spiral under its last two leaders. Mark Thompson, CNN’s current CEO, has slashed hundreds of positions and shuttered the network’s digital subscription service in a bid to stanch the bleeding while telling staff he intends to reorient coverage away from news and toward “lifestyle” reporting.

Jim Acosta, the rapacious reporter known for tangling with Trump at the White House, recently departed the network after Thompson and top executives sidelined him to the midnight hour out of fear that the Trump administration would chill CNN’s access. Chris Wallace, who left a storied career at Fox News to take a three-year position with CNN, announced late last year he was leaving as well, predicting he may forge his own more lucrative and independent path in the world of political podcasting.