UPDATE: Thursday’s CNN This Morning apologized for the citation of the parody account. Read more below.
On Wednesday’s CNN This Morning, during a conversation on the health of Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), CNN cited a figure named “Rep. Jack Kimble” on a list of lawmakers who had talked to McConnell amid his hospitalization. The only problem: Jack Kimble was not a real person and was a fake Republican congressman who posts on an X parody account.
In the final segment of the show, host Audie Cornish introduced the topic of McConnell’s health concerns and showed a graphic with four quotes as she said, “So you have a lot of Senate Republicans coming out. We’re going to just show some on screen, Isaac, all saying, “I talked to him.” “I talked to him.” “I talked to him for 20 minutes.” “I talked to him for 45 minutes.”
Of the four quote boxes shown, they cited spokespeople for Senate Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Senate WHIP John Barrasso (R-WY), along with CNN commentator Scott Jennings.
The other quote came from… a satirical Kimble account tweet. The CNN quotation read:
“I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior Senator from Kentucky. He’s still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 45 minutes.” – Rep. Jack Kimble.
OOPS: CNN This Morning cites parody account of fake congressman @RepJackKimble on list of quotes about Sen. Mitch McConnell’s health. pic.twitter.com/GBXJ37bkoe
— Nick (@nspin310) July 8, 2026
Funny enough, this is not the first time a media outlet has been fooled by Kimble’s account and has been cited in multiple fact checks, including a Reuters fact check from 2024 and one from Snopes in 2025.
Kimble also has a Wikipedia page dedicated to him where an introduction reads:
Jack Kimble, also known by his Twitter username @RepJackKimble, is a fictional and satirical character active on the social media websites Twitter and Bluesky.
In 2010, he even duped former The Washington Post columnist Johnathan Capehart, now a host of a weekend morning show on MS NOW, who saw a tweet from Kimble’s account and then wrote a whole opinion piece based on it.
Kimble responded to the CNN citation with a post that read: “CNN’s leftwing bias exposed.”
CNN’s extreme leftwing bias exposed pic.twitter.com/5YEbGToOA7
— Rep. Jack Kimble (@RepJackKimble) July 8, 2026
If CNN clicked on the account instead of just citing a tweet from someone scrolled by and saved as they thought it was from a real congressman, they could easily tell the account was satirical from its hilariously and clearly photo-shopped profile picture and banner.
Was it too much to ask for CNN to do a simple web search of a clearly satirical congressman? Where were the fact-checkers?
On Thursday’s CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish apologized for the error and admitted one of the quotes on McConnell’s health “was mistakenly taken from a parody account on Twitter.” She continued, “Now, obviously, we should not have done that, and we regret the error.”
The transcript is below. Click “expand”:
CNN This Morning
July 8, 2026
6:57:44 AM Eastern
(…)
AUDIE CORNISH: So, you have a lot of Senate Republicans coming out. We’re going to just show some on screen, Isaac, all saying, “I talked to him.” “I talked to him.” “I talked to him for 20 minutes.” “I talked to him for 45 minutes.”
(…)
[QUOTES FROM ON-SCREEN GRAPHIC at 6:58:07 AM Eastern]
MAJORITY LEADER JOHN THUNE SPOKESPERSON: “They had a length and substantive conversation that covered a variety of topics including national security.”
SENATE GOP WHIP JOHN BARRASSO SPOKESPERSON: “He spoke with McConnell this afternoon for about 20 minutes and that the Kentucky Republican ‘was fully engaged and is eager to get back to the Senate’,”
REP. JACK KIMBLE: “I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior Senator from Kentucky. He’s still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 45 minutes.”
SCOTT JENNINGS: “I spoke to my old friend Mitch McConnell this morning, the senior Senator from Kentucky. He’s still recovering in the hospital. We talked for just shy of 20 minutes.”
(…)
July 9, 2026
6:24:28 AM Eastern
CORNISH: And yesterday on the show, we displayed quotes from a Republican – some Republicans, about Senator Mitch McConnell’s stay in the hospital. One of them was mistakenly taken from a parody account on Twitter. Now, obviously, we should not have done that, and we regret the error.