April Ryan Slams Trump for Inciting Media Hatred: ‘I Blame the President for This’

April Ryan, a veteran of the White House beat who’s dealt with a series of death threats so concerning she hired a personal bodyguard, has no doubt where the fault lies.

“I’m going to say this, and I’m just going to put it as simply as I can. I blame the president for this,” the CNN contributor told the network’s John Avlon on Reliable Sources Sunday.

For Ryan, the situation is looking grim.

“It is getting worse,” she said. “There is collateral damage. It affects not only the reporter but the people who are around the reporter.”

Known as an unrelenting challenger of President Donald Trump‘s administration, bringing a routinely hard line of questioning to the briefing room, Ryan felt that Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders missed the chance to make things right with reporters as the commander in chief continues to undermine their reputation.

She “had a chance to pull back, saying we’re [not] the enemy of the people. She didn’t,” Ryan said of Sanders, who has defended the president despite his constant use of the disparaging phrase.

Ryan noted the president has also refused to change his tune, which has been made all the more evident by his pattern of attacks on the reporting of trustworthy outlets, decrying anonymous sources despite having been one himself in the past.

“When I report, I speak the truth,” Ryan told Avlon. “And I have Republican sources who are in the inner circle, who give up the information. I don’t go in an office and go through a file cabinet. I’m given the information. Why? Because they’re whistleblowers and this administration does not like it.”

Watch the clip above, via CNN.

[Image via screengrab]