During a Wednesday appearance on “The Late Show,” CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta discussed President Donald Trump and his criticisms of the press.
“It’s not a big deal, right? Just say, you know, we’re not the enemy of the people,” Acosta told host Stephen Colbert. “At the end of the day, you shouldn’t be referring to journalists as the ‘enemy of the people.’ We’re not the enemy of the people.”
Acosta addressed Trump’s treatment of the media, which he said many members of the media are “fed up with.”
“I don’t think we do ourselves any good, Stephen, if we shy away from these hard questions. And, you know, my goodness, the way I look at it is — and this is the debate I have with my fellow journalists when we talk about this is what if we just did nothing? Do we just sit back and do nothing in the face of that?” he asked.
Acosta said Trump supporters get their impression of the press “twisted and warped” by conservative outlets “who just want to do the president’s bidding.”
“My sense of it, Stephen, is that a lot of these folks — they get their impression of what we do by watching other conservative outlets, they look at other conservative websites. And these folks are focused on the coverage of the president’s behavior more so than they are the president’s behavior. And to me, I think the president’s behavior is more newsworthy than our coverage. But a lot of these folks out there, they’re getting their sense of what we do twisted and warped by some people out there who just want to do the president’s bidding.”
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