White House press secretary Sarah Sanders shut down a reporter who alleged President Donald Trump’s supporters were “menacing” journalists at Tuesday night’s “Make America Great Again” rally.
WATCH:
“Does the president encourage the support of people who showed up last night in these ‘QAnon’ and ‘Blacks for Trump’ fringe groups, and secondly is the White House willing to say right now in view of what happened with one of our TV colleagues last night, that it is wrong for his most vocal supporters to be menacing toward journalist doing their jobs?” David Martosko asked during Wednesday’s press briefing.
Martosko, a former executive editor for The Daily Caller, was referring to Trump supporters chanting “CNN sucks!” at CNN’s chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta at the rally. (RELATED: ACOSTA WHINES THAT TRUMP RALLY CROWD HATES HIM)
Sanders replied that Trump denounces violence against reporters and supports a free press, however he also views the press as having a responsibility to report things accurately.
Martosko admitted that no one was violent toward Acosta, but that supporters were “trying to prevent a broadcaster from getting his broadcast out and yelling that his network sucks — is that right or wrong?”
“We support freedom of the press but we also support freedom of speech and we think those things go hand-in-hand,” Sanders shot back.