Trump Says Maybe to Punish Jim Acosta They’ll Turn Off Cameras Facing Reporters: But ‘I’ll Probably Be Sued for That’
Fox’s Chris Wallace interviewed President Donald Trump for FOX News Sunday this morning and the two spent a great deal of time talking about the press. As part of that overall discussion, the topic of CNN’s Jim Acosta and the CNN lawsuit naturally came up. Wallace asked the most obvious question about the incident, and Trump gave a very Trump answer.
Wallace began with the lawsuit. “A federal judge who you appointed has just ruled that you must give CNN reporter Jim Acosta his press pass back,” he said. “Your reaction to the ruling, sir.”
“It’s fine, I mean it’s not a big deal,” replied Trump in a portion of the interview that was released as an excerpt on Friday. Trump went on to say that if Acosta acted out, he’ll be kicked out again, and that based on the court’s ruling they’ll be coming up with a set of rules to follow. He suggested he could punish reporters who don’t follow them by simply ending the press conference.
Look, nobody believes in the First Amendment more than I do,” said Trump. “And if I think somebody’s acting out of sorts, I will leave, I’ll say thank you very much everybody, I appreciate you coming and I will leave. And those reporters will not be too friendly to whoever it is that’s acting up.”
That’s when Wallace asked the most obvious question about the Jim Acosta moment. “Why did you call on Acosta in the first place? I mean, it seems to me there’s a simple solution here, just don’t call on him,” he said.
“Actually I like to do it, but in many cases I don’t,” said Trump. “He’ll stand up, he’s unbelievably rude to Sarah Huckabee, who’s a wonderful woman, unbelievably rude and I see that and I actually ask her the same: Why do you call on these people that are so nasty?”
And he gave then the very Donald Trump answer. “I think one of the things we’ll do is maybe turn the camera off that faces them because then they don’t have any air time,” he cracked, suggesting that without the camera to perform to for his liberal audience, Acosta may not ask rhetorical questions for show, interrupt attempted answers, or wrestle with interns for microphones.
“–although I’ll probably be sued for that and maybe, you know, win or lose it, who knows,” he added wryly. “I mean, with with this stuff you never know what’s going to happen.”
In a further discussion on Trump’s attacks on the press, Wallace pushed back hard at separating outlets by how the president feels about them, saying they stand “in solidarity.”
Watch the clip above courtesy of FOX News Sunday.
[Featured image via screengrab]
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