Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” network chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta said President Donald Trump calling the press the “enemy of the people” was putting reporters in danger.
Acosta said, “I have grown up in a country in the last several decades here where Republicans, Democrats wanted to be in power in Washington, but they didn’t demonize us to this extent. And I think it’s gotten — I think it started off as an act based on my reporting that the president threw out fake news enemy of the people to taunt and troll us. That’s gotten out of control. It’s gotten to the point where his supporters, some of his supporters feel it’s okay to lash out at us in ways that I think puts us in danger. I think we have to pause, hit the pause button, and think deeply about whether or not this is the kind of country we want to hand down to our kids.”
He continued, “I don’t want it to become more dangerous. We had a pipe bomb delivered to CNN last fall. I received a number of death threats. A number of news anchors reporters who cover this president on a daily basis receive death threats. And, you know, we don’t know how serious they are. It could just be people venting their frustrations. I get that. We all get mad about what we see on the news on a daily basis. The question is whether or not somebody crosses that line and does something that hurts somebody or perhaps kills a journalist. And as I write in the book, Brian, I think at that point we cross over into a different era for the United States. Where we join a list ever other countries around the world where the press is not safe to do their jobs, and we just can’t do that. We cannot take that step because I think it’s a far slippery slope than we possibly can imagine.”
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