President Trump and CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta were involved in a heated exchange during which the president dismissed the reporter’s network as “fake news.”
Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday night in an attempt to quell coronavirus fears in a move that Acosta criticized on television. Acosta asked Trump if he is taking the coronavirus seriously enough.
“That is CNN. Fake News,” the president responded. “Thank you very much.”
CNN’s Jim Acosta: “What do you say to Americans who are concerned that you’re not taking this seriously enough and that some of your statements don’t match what your health experts are saying?”
President Trump: “That’s CNN. Fake news.” pic.twitter.com/c9T3ZhRIcP
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) March 11, 2020
“Now, why the president would go as far as to describe it as a foreign virus? That is something we’ll also be asking questions about,” Acosta said on CNN after the exchange.
“But it should be pointed out that Stephen Miller, who is an immigration hard-liner, who advises the president, is one of his top domestic policy advisers and speechwriters, was a driving force in writing this speech,” he added. “And I think it is going to come across to a lot of Americans as smacking of xenophobia to use that kind of term in this speech.”
Trump and Acosta have had a tense relationship for years, which has included several on-camera altercations.
“Your record is so bad, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Trump told the correspondent during his trip to India last month.
The president also called Acosta a “rude, terrible person” during a press conference argument in 2018.
