![Former CNN hosts Stuart Varney and Maria Bartiromo blast CNN as a ‘propaganda machine’](https://www.theblaze.com/media-library/image.jpg?id=22793165&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C204%2C0%2C204)
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Are they wrong?
Fox Business hosts Stuart Varney and Maria Bartiromo issued a scathing rebuke of their former network, CNN, during a recent exchange.
During Tuesday's broadcast of "Mornings with Maria," Varney pointed out that President Donald Trump's remarks that CNN is a disgrace to broadcasting doesn't seem too far a reach.
Trump made his feelings about the long-running network known during a Tuesday news conference in India.
"I happen to agree with that, by the way," Varney pointed out, "even though CNN is my alma mater."
He turned to Bartiromo and asked, "How about you?"
The veteran broadcaster answered in the affirmative.
"Stu," she began, "you and I worked at CNN when it was a completely different CNN. It was Ted Turner's CNN. It was an entrepreneurial CNN. It was a CNN that was innovating and doing different things. First broadcaster to actually report the news as it was actually happening, right? With the first Gulf War."
Varney responded, "We were not a propaganda machine. ... But CNN is nowadays."
Trump on Tuesday decried CNN and its chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta during remarks at the India news conference.
Acosta asked the president if he would commit to not accepting foreign assistance in the 2020 presidential election.
"First of all, I want no help from any country, and I haven't been given help from any country," Trump insisted. "And if you see what CNN, your wonderful network, said, I guess they apologized in a way for — didn't they apologize for the fact that they said certain things that weren't true?"
In response, Acosta quipped, "Mr. President, I think our record on delivering the truth is a lot better than yours sometimes."
"Let me tell you about your record," Trump fired back, "your record is so bad you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You have the worst record in the history of broadcasting."