Fake news reporter Jim Acosta complained Tuesday that President Trump’s consistent slamming of the media and ridiculing networks such as CNN as ‘fake news’ will lead to a reporter being attacked by Trump supporters.
Speaking with Variety along with reporters April Ryan and Ashley Parker of The Washington Post, Acosta suggested that Trump’s rhetoric will lead people to commit acts of violence against journalists.
“The problem is that people around the country don’t know it’s an act.” Acosta said, implying that Trump is disingenuous in his tirades against the media.
“They take what he says very seriously,” Acosta continued.
“They take attacks from Sean Spicer and Sarah Sanders and what they do to us on a daily basis very seriously,” he added.
Acosta further suggested that Trump supporters are mentally unhinged.
“They don’t have all their faculties in some cases. Their elevator may not hit all floors,” he exclaimed.
“My concern is that a journalist is going to be hurt one of these days. Somebody’s going to get hurt,” Acosta added.
Related: Associated Press Suggests Criticizing Journalists is “Hate Speech”
“And at that point, the White House, the President of the United States, they’re going to have take a hard look in the mirror and ask themselves whether or not they played a role in this, whether they created this toxic environment that resulted in a journalist getting hurt.” Acosta urged
The reporter has clashed with Trump a number of times, including most notably when Trump said “You are fake news,” to his face during a press briefing last year, and told Acosta that “Your organization is terrible,” referring to CNN.
Acosta has become increasingly hostile in his line of questioning, and has claimed that he is not being given the freedom to ask questions.
Third press briefing in a row that @PressSec did not take a question from CNN. #courage
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) March 5, 2018
During the Variety interview, April Ryan chimed in to claim that she doesn’t “travel as much as I used to” for fear of being attacked by supporters of Trump, who she says is guilty of “throwing gasoline on the fire”.
Elsewhere during the interview, April Ryan stated that “fake news” isn’t “a cute little statement” but rather “has tentacles that it’s reaching overseas” that “can really destabilize democracies.”
She also charged that Trump has violated his Oath of Office by not supporting the media, claiming that reporters like herself and Acosta are “pillars of this nation”.
“He’s really being a hypocrite when he’s calling us “fake news” and saying — and it’s undermining us and we are a part of the pillars of this nation, the Founding Fathers. They didn’t know that there was going to be Twitter. They didn’t know there was going to be Ashley, they didn’t know there was going to be a Jim, they definitely didn’t know there was going to be an April asking questions of Presidents, but when we stand on what they laid for us and we — and the First Amendment is still strong — freedom of press and the President is going totally against that.” Ryan stated.
The part she left out was that the First Amendment also gives Americans the right to criticize the press.
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