‘You’re Guilty, Jon’: Trump Rails Against ABC Correspondent in the Oval Office, Says ‘You’re a Terrible Reporter’
President Donald Trump laid into ABC Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl on Friday, declaring the scribe “guilty” while deeming him “a terrible reporter.”
The president fielded questions from reporters in the Oval Office, where Karl asked the president about freedom of speech. Moments earlier, Trump claimed that excessive criticism of him on television networks is “illegal” because, at a certain point, that criticism is “no longer free speech.”
Criticism of the president is protected speech under the First Amendment. Trump’s comments came two days after ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! The suspension happened just hours after Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened the network over Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks about Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin.
“I just wanna settle this free speech question, because you’ve said that you’d restored free speech in America,” Karl said. “Is that free speech, including for people who are harshly critical of you, for your political opponents, for people who say things you don’t like, who treat you unfairly?”
Trump responded:
I’ve become immune to it. There’s never been a person that’s had more unfair publicity than me. And that’s why your network paid me $15 million, or $16 million dollars. George slopadopoulos. And that’s why CBS paid me a lot of money, too. And that’s why I sued The New York Times two days ago because, well, I’m winning. I’m winning the cases, and the reason I’m winning the cases is because you’re guilty, Jon. You’re guilty. ABC is a terrible network, a very unfair network.
And you should be ashamed of yourself. NBC is equally bad. I don’t know who’s worse. I think they’re equally bad. And you know, for you to stand there and act so innocent and ask me a question like that. You paid a big price because you were dishonest, Jon. The reason that I won that lawsuit was because you were dishonest. You were proven to be dishonest. And so, you can’t sit back and just say, “Oh, well, what do you think?” like you’re some wonderful person. You’re not a wonderful person. Frankly, you’re a terrible reporter. You know it and so do I.
Trump sued ABC News after This Week host George Stephanopoulos said Trump had been found “liable for rape” in a lawsuit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll. The jury in that case found Trump liable for sexual assault, but not rape. ABC News ultimately settled the case for $15 million.
Watch above via NewsNation.
