“Increasingly, Trump supporters are demonstrating just how aligned they are with his view that the political press is the enemy of the people.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-1-2018

A crowd of Trump supporters heckled CNN reporter Jim Acosta at a rally in Tampa, Florida on Tuesday night. (Photo: @emilylgoodin/Twitter)

At a press briefing on Wednesday, the White House offered a defense of President Donald Trump’s implicit endorsement of anti-press vitriol that was on display at his rally in Tampa, Florida the previous evening, when several Trump supporters heckled CNN reporter Jim Acosta.

When asked whether or not it is wrong for the president’s “most vocal supporters to be menacing towards journalists,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders assured reporters that the president supports a free press, while appearing to suggest that Acosta and other journalists may be deserving of mistreatment. Continue reading →