CNN’s Acosta: Trump Tweet ‘Is Going to Lead to a Journalist Being Hurt’ — ‘He’s Trying to Silence Us’

Sunday on CNN, White House Correspondent for CNN Jim Acosta said President Donald Trump’s tweet of a video that shows him wrestling a CNN logo was “going to lead to a journalist being hurt.”

Acosta said, “I think our statement really sums it up. You know, there are two approaches to this. One is, we can just sit back and be silent and just take it. There are some people who say don’t take the bait. You are going to encourage this behavior even more. I think we’re well past that now. I think we’re at the stage where we have to try the other approach, which is we have to stand up to this. We have to confront this and say that it’s wrong. I speak for myself. I can’t speak for everybody who has covered Donald Trump since he was a candidate. I covered him throughout that campaign, and now that he’s president of the United States—my concern is, and I know it’s shared by others, is that this kind of rhetoric, this kind of behavior is going to lead to a journalist being hurt. That’s the thing I worry about.”

He continued, “I hate that I’m worried about that on 4th of July weekend when we’re all supposed to be celebrating our freedoms, including the First Amendment, the right to free speech and the free press. That’s what I’m concerned about, and I think where we stand right now is—people have a choice on all sides of the political spectrum, on both sides of the political aisle. Where are you going to stand in all of this? Are you going to say well, it’s okay for the president to engage in this kind of attack the news media, try to intimidate the news media? He’s trying to silence us, that’s what’s going on here. Or are people going to say enough is enough? I think that we’ve reached that point where people need to say, enough is enough. It doesn’t matter what party you’re from, what side of the political spectrum you’re on, this is just not the kind of information you expect to come from the president of the United States.”

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