Video: CNN's John King on election night tells viewers to 'trust us ... a news source that you know and trust to be honest.' Reactions are hilarious.

 CNN's John King — an anchor and chief national correspondent — urged viewers Tuesday night to "trust us" as midterm election night issues surface.

What did King say?

"Stay off social media, people," King said as anchor Jake Tapper elicited a chuckle. King added: "If you're trying to figure out, 'Are there really issues with voting?' trust your local officials, trust us here, trust a news source that you know and trust to be honest about this. They're doing their job, and they're doing it right."

Twitter reactions to King's plea were quite humorous:

• "Does @JohnKingCNN give seminars in self-awareness?" conservative podcaster Ron Coleman asked.
• "I trust CNN about as much as the CDC," one commenter stated.
• "I trust gas station sushi more than I trust CNN, John King, and local officials," another user revealed.
• "The network that's hemorrhaging viewers and can't afford to keep their staff due to lack of credibility wants us to trust ... their election coverage," another commenter observed. "Right. Next I'll be asking David Depape to fix my door locks."
• "I’d rather trust a vasectomy performed on a trampoline," another user quipped.
• "They do comedy now," another commenter noticed.
• "Trust the organization that gave us Lemon and Acosta?" another user wondered.
• "Yeah I’d trust Casey Anthony babysitting my two yr old nephew over trusting CNN," another commenter declared.

The background you're all likely well aware of

After former President Donald Trump famously called out CNN as "fake news" way back when, more than a few things have taken place at the cable network that prompted speculation that Trump's accusation might have had some truth to it.

In August, before his program "Reliable Sources" was tossed in the trash, CNN's then-chief media correspondent Brian Stelter admitted that the Hunter Biden laptop story was real after previously downplaying it as right-wing exaggeration. Critics have often labeled Stelter a "hall monitor" for the media, and attacks against him — particularly for biased reporting — seemed to grow louder and more frequent over time.

CNN as a whole has been repeatedly accused of left-wing bias and specifically called out for pushing misinformation that's resulted in loss of trust. That may be why pundits brutally mocked CNN in January over the cable network's announcement that it would be creating a news team "dedicated to covering misinformation."

And beyond all of that, CNN has suffered numerous recent scandals, including the exits of disgraced legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, former CNN head Jeff Zucker, and anchor Chris Cuomo — not to mention the embarrassingly fast demise of CNN+ earlier this yea