Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” network chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta sounded off on President Donald Trump’s treatment of the media during his presidency.
According to Acosta, Trump’s “hostility” towards the media was absorbed by his supporters, who he said made members of the media “feel endangered” with “death threats.”
“There were Trump supporters all over the country absorbing this hostility that the president was directing at the press and then lashing out at us, as well, and in ways that made us feel endangered,” Acosta lamented. “You know, I am not the only reporter who covered this White House who has had death threats. There have been a number of us who have experienced death threats. We can’t be at a place in this country, Brian, where political reporters, White House correspondents, and so on need bodyguards to go cover political campaigns and so on. And so, it’s more than just pulling a press pass or yelling at a reporter at a press conference or calling somebody names like we heard President Trump do … from time to time.”
He continued, “It is just a pervasive hostility towards the president — anti-democratic hostility towards the press that I just hope we never see the likes of ever again. It is just so damaging and destructive for our democracy.”
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