Anderson Cooper Thoroughly Wrecks Donald Trump Jr. For Spreading Lies About Him

Allow me to set the scene for you: In one corner we have Donald Trump Jr., idiot firstborn son and namesake of the president of the United States. In the other, Anderson Cooper, a famous journalist and scion of the vast Vanderbilt empire. It’s something of an “unstoppable force, immovable object” situation, except instead of being unstoppable, one of them runs straight into a brick wall and smashes himself flat like Wile E. Coyote.

Here’s the deal. On Sunday, Trump Jr. tweeted a picture of Cooper standing waist-deep in floodwaters while a camera crew stood nearby, with water only coming up to their calves, adding that CNN needed to “Stop Lying to make @realDonaldTrump look bad.” Given that Hurricane Florence had just pounded the Carolina coast, the insinuation seemed clear: CNN was faking its coverage of the storm’s damage.

Cooper was having none of it and spent a long time on his Monday night show dragging Donj directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

“I didn’t see him down in North Carolina over the last few days helping out, lending a hand, but I’m sure he was doing something important besides just tweeting lies,” Cooper began.

Noting that, actually, the picture in question was taken during 2008’s Hurricane Ike, Cooper explained that he had been standing in the deeper water because he didn’t want to be roaming on the roads, where emergency vehicles were attempting to pass.

“I didn’t want to be roaming around on the highway interfering with rescue vehicles in any way,” Cooper said. “I also wanted to show people how deep the water was and how dangerous it is for anyone driving.”

Cooper, who first shot to international fame for his coverage of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, ended his monologue by condemning the cult of personality surrounding the president and his hangers on.

“I don’t expect the president’s son to ever admit that he was wrong or one of the president’s advisers or frankly anyone else who’s retweeted any of these pictures,” he concluded. “But I at least thought that they and you should know the truth.”

Please watch Cooper’s entire monologue below, and allow yourself to feel a small modicum of glee at seeing Donj get so thoroughly wrecked on national television.

In a laughable attempt to save face, Junior responded to Cooper on Tuesday morning, doubling down on his accusation that CNN was somehow lying. His tweet linked to an article saying that the image of Cooper was just a meme and not an accusation of lying—a dubious claim, given that the memes were centered upon the notion that Cooper was lying about the hurricane.

Donj, just take the L, dude.