'You have wasted enough of my viewers' time': Jake Tapper kicks White House aide Stephen Miller off the air for being 'hysterical' - prompting Trump to slam the State of the Union host as a 'CNN flunky'

CNN anchor Jake Tapper cut off White House adviser Stephen Miller after a heated interview Sunday over a new book that has the president and his supporters up in arms.

The news anchor attributed Mr. Miller’s combative behavior to his desire to please the president.

“There’s one viewer that you care about right now, and you’re being obsequious, you’re being a factotum in order to please him,” Mr. Tapper said on his “State of the Union” show. “And I think I’ve wasted enough of my viewers’ time. Thank you, Stephen.”

The conversation centered on “Fire and Fury,” the new tell-all about the first year of the Trump presidency by magazine columnist Michael Wolff.

Mr. Miller denounced the book as “very poorly written fiction” and “garbage.” He then pivoted to attack CNN’s “anti-Trump” news coverage.

“You have 24 hours of negative, anti-Trump, hysterical coverage on this network that led in recent weeks to some spectacularly embarrassing false reporting from your network,” said Mr. Miller, the White House’s senior advisor for policy.

“I think the viewers right now can ascertain who is being hysterical,” Mr. Tapper responded.

“No, the viewers are entitled to have three [minutes] of the truth,” Mr. Miller said. “Why don’t you just give me three minutes to tell you the truth about the Donald Trump that I know and that all of our campaign staff know?”

“Because it’s my show, and I don’t want to do that,” Mr. Tapper said.

When the interview turned to Mr. Trump’s recent tweet declaring himself a “very stable genius,” Mr. Miller again attacked CNN’s reporting.

“Not only do I think [the tweets] help, but I think in the toxic environment that you’ve created here in CNN and cable news, which is a real crisis of legitimacy for your network — and we saw it, of course, with the extremely fake news that you reported about the Don Jr. and WikiLeaks story. That was a huge embarrassment for your network —”

“Stephen —” Mr. Tapper cut in.

“— just like the huge embarrassment that you had when you got the Comey testimony wrong,” Mr. Miller continued.

“Stephen, I’m trying to get to the issue of the president’s fitness, which a lot of people are questioning,” Mr. Tappersaid.

“Well, and I’m getting to the issue of your fitness,” Mr. Miller shot back.

Mr. Tapper accused Mr. Miller of attempting to “filibuster” and sent the show to a commercial break over Mr. Miller’s protestations.