CNN’s chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta on Thursday proposed a more concerted effort to push back against President Trump’s claim that the press is the enemy of the people, suggesting bumper stickers, buttons, and a demonstration in Washington as ways of counteracting the president’s bellicose rhetoric.
“It is un-American to come out here and call the press the enemy of the people, and Ivanka Trump knows that,” Acosta told CNN after trading barbs with White House press secretary Sarah Sanders during Thursday’s briefing. “I don’t know why her father doesn’t. And I don’t know why this press secretary doesn’t.”
[Related: New York Times publisher: I told Trump his anti-press language is ‘increasingly dangerous’]
CNN’s @Acosta on contentious WH press conference: “Honestly Brooke, I’m tired of this …. It is not right, it is not fair, it is not just, it is un-American to come out here and call the press the enemy of the people”https://t.co/1oGZa7f57j pic.twitter.com/sqEkOE89SM
— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) August 2, 2018
During the briefing, Sanders repeatedly rebuffed inquiries regarding whether she or the White House agreed with the president’s description of some reporters and news outlets as enemies of the people, at one point telling Acosta that she appreciated his “passion” for the issue. Their exchange followed Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and a White House adviser, telling Axios Thursday morning she did not hold the same animus toward the media as her father.
“I think maybe we should make some bumper stickers, make some buttons, maybe we should go out on Pennsylvania Ave. like these folks who chant ‘CNN sucks’ and ‘fake news,'” Acosta continued. “Maybe we should go out, all journalists should go out on Pennsylvania Ave. and chant, ‘We’re not the enemy of the people.’ Because I’m tired of this.”
Acosta’s confrontational style of questioning quickly earned him a reputation for clashing with officials in Trump’s 2016 campaign and later in his White House.
Acosta has become even more vocal this week about Trump’s escalating rhetoric against media organizations, especially after he faced a hostile crowd on Tuesday at a Trump rally in Tampa, Fla.
“I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in somebody getting hurt,” Acosta wrote on Twitter after the event, along with a video. “We should not treat our fellow Americans this way. The press is not the enemy.”
