April Ryan, the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks and a CNN analyst, said Friday she has to fight for her "survival" asking questions at the White House.
CNN host Wolf Blitzer was leading a discussion about regimes around the world that suppress and even kill journalists when Ryan made her comment. Blitzer asked specifically about President Donald Trump joking with Russian President Vladimir Putin "about so-called fake news" at the G-20 summit in Japan.
"Wolf as someone who has to fight everyday for her survival for asking questions at the White House, it's atrocious," Ryan said.
Ryan, who last fall was promoting her own book about her experience covering the White House, has said that Trump was taking the United States "down a line of a dictatorship." She's also said that CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta's "life was in jeopardy" at a Trump rally and lamented that former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders received Secret Service protection while reporters did not.
"Jim Acosta's life, in my opinion, was in jeopardy that night. There was a safety issue," Ryan said last August. "And, you know, she gets run out of a hen house [the Red Hen restaurant] a couple of weeks ago and gets Secret Service detail."
Ryan also said that Sanders should pay for her personal bodyguard, stating "I did not sign up for this. I was just doing a job."
Ryan's comments about the danger she feels came directly after the panel finished talking about murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and many others have held Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for his death.
In Saudi Arabia, there is no freedom of the press, and Turkey, where Khashoggi was killed, has jailed the most journalists of any nation in the world.