CNN was thrown through the proverbial wood chipper on Tuesday morning for an absurd post on X that openly fawned over two alleged ISIS-inspired Islamic terrorists — who are charged with having brought multiple improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to a New York City protest Saturday afternoon — as merely “[t]wo Pennsylvania teenagers” looking to bask in “the city during abnormally warm weather.” Following a few hours of ridicule, CNN deleted the post that fretted the lives of the teens “would drastically change” as they would end the day in prison that had started out as “a normal day enjoying the city” outside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdai’s home, Gracie Mansion. CNN cried uncle shortly after 9:30 a.m. Eastern: A post regarding the two individuals arrested for throwing homemade bombs outside of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home failed to reflect the gravity of the incident thereby breaching the editorial standards we require for all our reporting. It has therefore been deleted. — CNN (@CNN) March 10, 2026 To his credit, CNN’s Brian Stelter admitted in his Reliable Sources newsletter that “CNN was rightly criticized this morning for a post on X[.]” However, Stelter insisted it was just the tweet that “was outrageous” because “[t]he story itself was solid” and CNN “quickly addressed” the uproar. Fact-check: Pants on fire, Brian. Our buddy Jerry Dunleavy with Just the News blasted Stelter with a reality check that the deleted tweet was also the lede of the article by Gloria Pazmino and Taylor Romine (who uses they/them pronouns), but had been changed without notice (more on that in a bit): “The story itself was solid. But the tweet was outrageous.” The tweet in question ***was also the lede of the story*** before the article was stealth edited. https://t.co/Ci7nNy30rq — Jerry Dunleavy IV