President Trump‘s hostility toward the press reached new lows on Wednesday during a press conference in which the 45th commander in chief addressed theresults of Tuesday’s midterm elections.
His ongoing feud with CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent, Jim Acosta, led to the president, 72, calling the journalist, 47, “a rude, terrible” person as he tried to ask a question.
Then, Acosta asked the president if calling the caravan an “invasion” negatively characterized immigrants, to which Trump answered that he wanted them to “come in legally.”
Refusing to give up his microphone, Acosta pressed on, interrogating the president about special counsel Robert Mueller’s potential indictments resulting from his investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Evan Vucci/AP/Shutterstock
Erik S. Lesser/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
A White House staffer eventually had to take the mic from Acosta as Trump berated him.
“CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them,” he said. “You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN.”
Issuing a response on Twitter, CNN defended Acosta, adding, “This President’s ongoing attacks on the press have gone too far.”
“They are not only dangerous, they are disturbingly un-American. While President Trump has made it clear he does not respect a free press, he has sworn an obligation to protect it,” the statement continued. “A free press is vital to democracy, and we stand behind Jim Acosta and his fellow journalists everywhere.”
The formerApprenticehost then turned his fury to CNN’s April Ryan, telling her to sit down as she attempted to ask a question, stating, “I didn’t call on you.”
Next, he asked a female reporter seated beside a male peer if they are a couple.
“I can’t understand you,” he told one woman with an accent, and when African-American White House Correspondent Yamiche Alcindor asked him about his connection to white nationalism, he told her she was being “racist.”
source: people.com
