After CNN’s Jim Acosta was loudly heckled Tuesday night at a Trump rally in Tampa, Florida, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said “while we certainly support freedom of the press, we also support freedom of speech, and we think that those things go hand in hand.”
That came in response to a question at the White House press briefing, where Sanders was asked about the heckling — which grew quite aggressive, according to video Acosta posted to Twitter, and spilled onto his broadcast.
“Is the White House willing to say right now, in view of what happened with one of our TV colleagues last night, that it is wrong for his most vocal supporters to be menacing towards journalists doing their jobs in a situation like that?” a reporter asked.
Sanders refused to condemn the yelling at Acosta.
“When it comes to the media, the President does think that the media holds a responsibility,” she said. “We fully support a free press, but there also comes a high level of responsibility with that.”
She went on a tangent, blaming the media for “routinely report[ing] on classified information and government secrets that put lives in danger and risk valuable national security tools,” before, for some reason, citing the reporting on Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone in the late ‘90s.
“Because of that reporting, he stopped using that phone and the country lost valuable intelligence,” Sanders said. (That’s not what happened.)
The reporter pressed: No one was being violent toward Acosta at the rally, he said, and Acosta wasn’t broadcasting state secrets.
“They were trying to do stand-ups at a public rally, and you have people trying to yell over them preventing them from doing their jobs and yelling that their network sucks on live TV,” he said. “Does the White House support that or not?”
“While we certainly support freedom of the press, we also support freedom of speech, and we think that those things go hand in hand,” Sanders said.
This post has been updated.
If you support freedom of speech, bring your rally circus to San Francisco.
And don’t let your goons keep out everyone who can pass an IQ test.
Something big is coming…tick tock, tick tock. Sanders performance today was like Baghdad Bob.
Remind us, please. Which President authorized the attack on Osama bin Laden?
From the book of Sister Sarah Chapter 13 verse 666
Otherwise known as "First Amendment for me but Not for Thee"
Exactly. I found her referring to her notes on these questions odd, once again. She knew it all was coming. But her putting out her lies and propaganda was really visible. Her statements on freedom of speech followed by a but was absolutely the wrong direction to go. The §residential tweets are sounding desperate and his pandering to his people more strident. I cannot even grasp why he opened his yap about Manafort. It was less than prudent and looked distressed. In my eyes, while his actions are not in that trial, he just tied himself right back into it. So damn much that as I said earlier today, what the hell? I agree something is coming and they know it.