ABC News chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl responded to President Trump’s recent criticism of him during a press conference, saying it was “tempting” to walk out of the briefing.
“Well, it has happened with alarming consistency,” Karl said Tuesday on The View about the president’s clashes with reporters at his coronavirus press conferences. “At virtually every one of these briefings, there is a moment where he lashes out in very personal terms at a reporter. He’s done it to me now twice. He’s done it to several of my colleagues.”
“He wants to see the reviews. He talks about the ratings all the time, and he very much pays attention to the critics, which would be the press,” he added. “I have to say — I hear that he is spending a good chunk of each day complaining to his top advisers about the way his response to this crisis is being portrayed in the news media. He truly cares about this and is, to a degree, obsessed about it. So, you know, he lashes out, like I said, virtually every day in one of these briefings.”
Karl went on to call his altercation with the president “frustrating” but said he would not leave a briefing no matter how “tempting.”
“He can insult me all he wants. I don’t care,” he said. “What matters is getting to the bottom of what is happening with the federal response and how people should be responding to this crisis.”
Trump slammed Karl, who is also the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, in his Monday press briefing for bringing up the inspector general’s report about hospital shortages.
“Look, you’re a third-rate reporter, and what you just said is a disgrace, okay?” the president told the White House reporter. “You will never make it.”
The president dismissed the inspector general report as “just wrong” for claiming there were “severe” shortages of medical supplies and coronavirus tests.
