Here's What You Need To Know About The Spat Between CNN and Rubio's Campaign Last Night

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential campaign is pushing back hard against a story published Monday night by CNN's Jamie Gangel that they're calling “fiction” and “utter nonsense.”

A story by Gangel was posted on CNN's website on Monday with the headline, "Some Rubio advisers say get out before Florida." [Note: the story has been updated since it was originally posted.]

Gangel claimed that Rubio's own inner circle “agree he does not have a path to the nomination and some are advising him to get out ahead of the March 15 primary." The article does not include anyone who was willing to speak on the record, but quotes several anonymous "sources within the campaign," "one source familiar with the [internal campaign] discussions,” etc.

Rubio's campaign swiftly attacked the story, saying that it was inaccurate and objecting to Gangel's failure to contact anyone on the Rubio campaign for comment.

Alex Conant, Rubio's communications director, said that he had been in a meeting with senior campaign staff when the story broke, and immediately went over to CNN's studios to counter it. In an appearance Monday afternoon on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Conant attacked the story with his very first words:

Wolf, Jamie's report was utter nonsense. She did not contact the campaign prior to coming on the show last hour and reporting that. It is 100 percent absolutely false. I think CNN is doing a disservice to voters by airing that sort of reporting without even checking with the campaign.

Her sources, whatever they are, have no idea what the internal deliberations of the campaign are because if she did, she would know that Marco feels confident about Florida. Just a new poll today, a public poll today, showed Marco gaining from double digits down two weeks ago, single digits now. We're ahead in the early voting. We are going to be there for the next week. We know how to win in Florida. We're going to win in Florida and it's going to be a new day on the campaign the day after we win Florida.

Conant adamantly repeated that the story was not true and could not have come from any sources with actual knowledge:

CONANT: Wolf, I have a lot of respect for you, but I'm going to ask you to stop reading that sort of fiction on air because it's not true at all. If Jamie had checked with the campaign, if Jamie had good sources in the campaign, she would know that's not true. That's fiction and CNN should stop reporting it.

BLITZER: You don't know, there maybe some private advisers, some senior advisors, who aren't necessarily coordinating with the campaign, just speaking as sometimes they do candidly to a journalist, right?

CONANT: That's just not the case. That's just not the case, Wolf. I was sitting in a senior staff meeting planning out next week's schedule when I saw this report suddenly air and I came racing across town.

BLITZER: I know, you came over here deliberately.

CONANT: Because CNN hadn't asked us for comment before that. CNN went to air with a report without asking the campaign for feedback. Who does that? How did that happen? How did that get to air without somebody asking the campaign for comment?

The campaign quickly sent out a fundraising email from Conant, in which he stated that he was “typing this email from my iPhone” on his way back from CNN because he was so “angry” about the “completely 100% made up report on anonymous rumors.”

Rubio's team also sent out the video and transcript of Conant's appearance with Blitzer. Gangel's article was updated with quotes from Blitzer's show, but the main allegations were left up.

Monday evening, Conant tweeted that his scheduled appearance on Anderson Cooper's CNN show had been abruptly cancelled. According to a report by Politico, no explanation has been given for the cancellation.

Several other journalists questioned why CNN went forward with the story without contacting the campaign, noted the updates, and expressed skepticism about the story's credibility. As the Washington Examiner's Becket Adams wrote, Gangel seemed to acknowledge that her story was based on “a single anonymous source.”

The controversy comes at a time when many Republicans, long frustrated about liberal media bias, have started publicly criticizing the more conservative Fox News Channel, saying that some of their show hosts and commentators are too fawning in their coverage of Donald Trump. Rubio supporters especially have been posting on social media that they have switched from Fox to other channels like CNN for this very reason.

One such Rubio supporter is Ellen Carmichael. A Republican consultant who previously served as the communications director for Herman Cain's presidential campaign, Carmichael told Independent Journal Review that she was “just dumbfounded that this story went on air.”

Carmichael, who is not working for the Rubio campaign or any of the PACs supporting him, was quick to point out that she didn't have a problem with CNN and encouraged other Rubio supporters “not to direct their ire at Wolf Blitzer,” but at the true cause of the problem: “A reporter who ran a story with a single anonymous source that was initially framed as a campaign insider.”

Carmichael called it “totally unprecedented” for CNN to run this story without seeking comment from the Rubio campaign. When she was Cain's communications director:

“I never experienced anything like this with CNN myself...it is journalistic malpractice to run a story of this level of gravity without contacting the campaign it concerns.”

As Rubio's campaign has done in the past, they didn't leave the opposition to the story to just press releases and fundraising emails, but also included a humorous counteroffensive on social media. Several members of Team Marco posted tweets mocking the CNN story, and supporters quickly chimed in with their own #CNNheadlines.

As Rubio supporters on Twitter were commenting on the story and sharing their own #CNNheadlines quips, Carmichael noticed several posting that they were donating to Rubio's campaign, and citing their anger over the CNN story as the cause. Carmichael started encouraging her Twitter followers to donate and retweeting those who did.

Follow Sarah Rumpf on Twitter: @rumpfshaker.