Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin asserted on Sunday that he had never heard of a bombshell Washington Post report revealing that the Trump administration banned the Center for Disease Control (CDC) from using words like "fetus" and "science-based."

Although the report had been at the top of the headlines for two days, Mnuchin insisted to CNN host Jake Tapper that he was in the dark about the allegations.

"Policy analysts at the Center for Disease Control as well as other divisions at the Department of Health and Human Services were given a list of forbidden words," Tapper explained to the treasury secretary. "Why would the Trump administration tell the CDC not to use a term like 'science-based'?"

"It's the first time I'm hearing of that," Mnucnin claimed. "I'm not aware of the directive at all."

Mnucnin also insisted that he had never been told by the Trump administration to avoid using words that anger conservatives.

"Nobody's told me not to use certain words," he said.