A White House reporter on Tuesday took exception to remarks Sarah Huckabee Sanders made after she blasted "fake news" in the media, raising his voice to tell the deputy press secretary that she was making "inflammatory" comments about the press.
Sanders had just castigated the press for a "constant barrage of fake news directed at this president" that she said was frustrating President Donald Trump, in response to a question from Breitbart's Charlie Spiering. Trump tweeted more criticism Tuesday morning of CNN, one of his frequent targets.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/879678356450676736
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/879682547235651584
Sanders said CNN had been "repeatedly wrong" and appeared to reference a Project Veritas video where a CNN producer was recorded calling the Russia investigation story "mostly bullshit." If true, Sanders said, it was a disgrace to journalism.
"If the media can't be trusted to report the news, then that's a dangerous place for America," she said.
As she pointed out CNN reporters were forced to resign this week over a retracted story about Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci, reporter Brian Karem cut in.
"Come on! You're inflaming everybody right here and right now with those words," he said. "This administration has done that as well. Why in the name of heavens—any one of us are replaceable, and any one of us, if we don't get it right, the audience has the opportunity to turn the channel or not read us."
"I think—" Sanders started.
"You have been elected to serve for four years at least," he said. "There's no option other than that. We're here to ask you questions. You're here to provide the answers, and what you just did is inflammatory to people all over the country who look at it and say, 'See, once again, the president is right, and everybody else out here is fake media.' And everybody in this room is only trying to do their job."
"I disagree completely," Sanders said. "If anything has been inflamed, it's the dishonesty that often takes place by the news media, and I think it is outrageous for you to accuse me of inflaming a story when I was simply trying to respond to his question."