A reporter went on a tirade against White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders at the press briefing Tuesday after she used a retracted CNN report to criticize the national media.
Brian Karem, who covers the White House for a Maryland newspaper, accused Sanders at the briefing of “inflaming everyone” by lumping all news media together.
“What you just did is inflammatory to people all over the country who look at it and say, ‘See, once again, the president is right and everybody out here is fake media,'” Karem said. “And everybody in this room is only trying to do their job.”
He added, “We’re here to ask you questions. You’re here to provide the answers.”
“I disagree completely,” Sanders replied. “If anything has been inflamed, it’s the dishonesty that often takes place by the news media. And I think it is outrageous for you to accuse me of inflaming a story when I was simply trying to respond to his question.”
Before Karem’s outburst, Sanders said that Trump is “frustrated” by the “constant barrage of fake news” about his administration and the federal investigation into whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.
She told the reporters in the room to watch a new undercover video, produced by the conservative sting activist James O’Keefe, that showed a producer for the network suggesting that the news media are sensationalizing its coverage of the Russia-collusion story.
She said if the video is accurate, it showed CNN to be a “disgrace to all of media” and said that Americans “deserve better from our news media.”
CNN also fell under scrutiny in recent days after it retracted a report related to Trump and Russia, leading to three journalists at the network resigning for their involvement.
