CNN reporter Jim Acosta complained Tuesday that White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was taking too many questions from conservatives.
“Does this feel like America?” Acosta complained on Twitter. “Where the White House takes q’s from conservatives, then openly trashes the news media in the briefing room.”
Despite Acosta’s complaints, Sanders took questions from several reporters who work for outlets like CBS, NBC, NPR and Bloomberg News.
Acosta’s outburst was an apparent response to Sanders’ critique of CNN early in the press briefing. Sanders blasted the network over its retraction this weekend of an article which claimed that Trump transition official Anthony Scaramucci was under congressional investigation over Russian business ties.
CNN retracted the article after Scaramucci vehemently denied the claim. Three employees who worked on the piece resigned on Monday.
CNN found itself in another scandal early Tuesday after the conservative group Project Veritas released an undercover video in which a health news producer for the network was recorded saying that CNN’s coverage of Trump-Russia connections was “mostly bullshit.” (RELATED: Sarah Sanders: Project Veritas Video ‘A Disgrace To All Of Media’ If Accurate)
Sanders asserted that the video was “a disgrace to all of media.”
“There’s a video circulating now, whether it’s accurate or not I don’t know, but I would encourage everyone in this room, and, frankly, everyone across the country, to take a look at it,” she said. “I think if it is accurate it’s a disgrace to all of media, to all of journalism.”
Acosta has been highly critical of the White House recently. His main beef is the administration’s scale back of its live daily press briefings. He has also expressed frustration over receiving fewer questions in press briefings than he believes he deserves.
However, Acosta was not at Tuesday’s briefing. CNN reporter Jeff Zeleny attended in his place instead.