Huckabee Sanders rejects CNN demand she contradict president

CNN's Jim Acosta, who frequently has berated the White House and Trump administration officials, on Thursday demanded that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders contradict her boss.

She refused.

Acosta asked Sanders to undermine the president's frequent declarations that establishment media are the "enemy of the people."

Studies have shown that some 90 percent of media reports about Trump and his administration have been negative, and reporters covering the White House often engage in hostile exchanges in briefings.

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"You read off a laundry list of your concerns about the press," Acosta told Sanders, "and then things that you feel were misreported, but you did not say that the press is not the enemy of the people.

"I think it would be a good thing if you were to state right here at this briefing that the press, the people who are gathered in this room right now, doing their jobs every day, asking questions of officials like the ones you brought forward earlier, are not the enemy of the people. I think we deserve that."

Not happening, Sanders made clear.

"It's ironic, Jim, that not only you and the media attack the president for his rhetoric when they frequently lowered the level of conversation in this country," she said.

She pointed out that the media set her up for an attack at an annual dinner, she's been personally maligned and she now is assigned Secret Service protection because of the hostile atmosphere to which the media have contributed.

"The media has attacked me repeatedly," she said. "When I was hosted by the correspondents' association you brought up a comedian to attack me. As far as I know, I'm the first press secretary in the history of the United States that's required Secret Service protection."

Huckabee Sanders said the media "continues to ratchet up the verbal assault against the president and everyone in this administration and certainly we have a role to play but the media has to role to play for the discourse in this country as well."

Acosta continued to press Sanders to say what he wanted her to say.

"You did not say in the course of those remarks that you just made that the press is not the enemy of the people. Are we to take it from what you just said, we all get put through the wringer, we all get put through the meat grinder in this town and you’re not an exception and I’m sorry that happened to you. I wish that did not happen," the CNN reporter said.

"For the sake of this room, for the people in this room, this democracy, this country, all the people around the world are watching what you are saying and the White House for the United States of America, the president of the United States should not refer to us as enemy of the people? His own daughter acknowledges that and all I'm asking is you acknowledge that right here and right now."

Sanders responded: "I appreciate your passion. I share it. I've addressed this question. I've addressed my personal feelings. I'm here to speak on behalf of the president. He's made his statements clear."

Her remarks followed by hours an event in Washington in which Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter, said she does not believe the media are the enemy of the people.

After the fact, Acosta took to Twitter to continue berating Sanders.

"Sarah Sanders was repeatedly given a chance to say the press is not the enemy and she wouldn't do it. Shameful," he wrote.

The president later said his daughter was right in saying the media are not the enemy. He said it is the "fake news" that is the enemy, and he asserted that makes up a large part of the media.