‘You ask a lot of stupid questions’: Latest attack on free press as Trump threatens to strip credentials of journalists who don’t show him ‘respect’

Smearing one reporter as a "loser," the president said he might revoke the credentials of more journalists.

By
Jake Johnson
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213
SOURCECommon Dreams
Image Credit: Articlebio

President Donald Trump continued his ugly attacks on the press during a media gaggle on the White House lawn on Friday morning, smearing one reporter as a “loser,” denouncing another CNN journalist’s perfectly reasonable question about the Russia investigation as “stupid,” and imperiously threatening to revoke the credentials of members of the media who don’t show him sufficient “respect.”

After CNN reporter Abby Phillip asked Trump whether he wants newly appointed Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to “rein in” Special Counsel Robert Mueller—an idea Whitaker has repeatedly endorsed—the president called the question “stupid” and fumed that Phillip asks “a lot of stupid questions.”

“What a stupid question that is. What a stupid question. But I watch you a lot, you ask a lot of stupid questions,” Trump sneered.

Trump went on to launch another attack on CNN reporter Jim Acosta—whose press credentials the White House stripped on the basis of a doctored video—and American Urban Radio Networks journalist April Ryan, who the president called a “loser” who “doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing.”

In response to a question about how long Acosta’s press credentials will be suspended, Trump declared, “As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t made that decision. But it could be others also.”

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