White House briefing

Sarah Huckabee Sanders tangles with reporter at White House briefing

By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL

Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders blasted the media on Tuesday for the coverage of what she called the “Trump-Russia hoax,” prompting a tangle with a reporter who asked Trump's White House to stop “inflaming” the press corps.

Sanders told reporters during the White House briefing that “the constant barrage of fake news directed at” President Donald Trump “has garnered a lot of his frustration.” Trump in a pair of Tuesday morning tweets called CNN “fake news,” as well as NBC, CBS, ABC, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Sanders took issue specifically with CNN, which recently retracted a report about the Russia investigation and Trump transition team member Anthony Scaramucci that led to three resignations at the network. “There are multiple other instances where that outlet that you referenced has been repeatedly wrong and had to point that out or be corrected,” Sanders said.

She pointed to an undercover video from the Project Veritas group in which John Bonifield, a producer for CNN’s medical unit, is heard discussing that CNN’s focus on Trump and his campaign's involvement with Russia is good for ratings but that the story is likely “mostly bulls—t” and that Trump is likely right to call it a “witch hunt.”

The producer, who is based out of Atlanta and does not cover politics, met the undercover Project Veritas staffer, whom Project Veritas does not identify, in a peer mentorship group. Bonifield acted as a mentor to the undercover staffer under the pretense the undercover staffer was interested in a career in journalism. A spokesperson said the network stands by its medical producer and welcomes and embraces diversity of personal opinion.

Sanders encouraged “everybody in this room and, frankly, everybody across the country to take a look at” the video — even after conceding that she’s unsure whether it’s accurate.

If true, she said, the video “is a disgrace to all of media” and “all of journalism.” “I think that we have gone to a place where if the media can’t be trusted to report the news, then that’s a dangerous place for America,” she continued, going on to condemn the press for relying on unnamed sources and not reporting on positive developments within the Trump administration.

“I think that we should take a really good look at what we’re focused on, what we are covering and making sure that it’s actually accurate and it’s honest,” Sanders said. “If we make the slightest mistake, the slightest word is off, it is just an absolute tirade from a lot of people in this room, but news outlets get to go on day after day and cite unnamed sources, use stories without sources.”

Brian Karem, a White House reporter for The Sentinel, chimed in moments later, telling the White House spokeswoman that she was “inflaming everybody right here and right now with those words.”

“Any one of us, if we don’t get it right, the audience has the opportunity to turn the channel or not read us, but you have been elected to serve for four years at least. There’s no option other than that,” he said. “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.”

Sanders said she “completely” disagreed. “First of all, I think if anything has been inflamed, it’s the dishonesty that often takes place by the news media,” she shot back. “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.”