During his Wednesday afternoon broadcast on Fox News, anchor Shepard Smith came to the defense of CNN’s Jim Acosta and scolded President-elect Donald Trump for refusing to call on the CNNer at a press conference. Smith was incensed that Trump called out CNN for “fake news.”
Shep’s heart bled for CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta after a contentious tête–à–tête during the President-Elect’s Wednesday afternoon press conference.
The back and forth between Trump and the CNN reporter came on a day when the nation awoke to find a fake news report by CNN that was augmented by a document dump by Internet site BuzzFeed. The story claimed that Donald Trump had made secret financial deals with Russia and also contained salacious stories about encounters with prostitutes. But the story had been hanging around at least since July and has been snubbed by every major news outlet in the country because nothing contained in the report is verifiable.
As a result of the release of the fake news, Trump decided he didn’t feel much like taking a question from CNN’s political reporter. Trump even pointedly called CNN “fake news” during the presser.
But Smith took offence that Trump refused to take a question from CNN’s Acosta and on his own show scolded the President-elect for “belittling or delegitimizing” CNN.
“CNN’s exclusive reporting on the Russian matter was separate and distinctly different from the document dump executed by an online news property,” the Fox anchor insisted. “Though we at Fox News cannot confirm CNN’s report, it is our observation that its correspondents follow journalistic standards and that neither they nor any other journalists should be subjected to belittling or delegitimizing by the President-elect of the United States.”
During the January 11 press conference, Trump slammed CNN for “building up” the false claims in the story about Russian financial ties. And as he criticized CNN, Acosta yelled out, “Since you are attacking us, can you give us a question?”
In reply, Trump said, “Not you. You are fake news,” and refused.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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