Jim Acosta on Facing Jeering Mob at Trump Rally: ‘It Felt Like We Weren’t in America Anymore’

CNN reporter Jim Acosta spoke with HLN’s S.E. Cupp just one day after being shouted down by Trump supporters at a rally in Tampa, Florida.

Cupp started off the segment on her Wednesday show by introducing Acosta as “one of the president’s favorite human punching bags” before asking him about his rally experience.

Acosta replied by saying this type of hostility has been building since the campaign.

“Honestly, it felt like we weren’t in America anymore,” Acosta said. “I don’t know how to put it any more plainly than that. Americans should not be treating their fellow Americans in this way.”

He then said Trump’s penchant for calling the media “liars,” “scum,” and “thieves” is to blame.

“He is whipping these crowds up into a frenzy to the point where they really want to come after us,” Acosta continued on.

He also pointed fingers at conservative outlets for helping to feed the fury.

“My sense of it is that these opinions these folks have at these rallies, they’re shaped by what they see in the primetime hours of Fox News and what they hear from some conservative news outlets that just sort of give them this daily diet of what they consider to be terrible things we do over here at CNN,” Acosta told Cupp.  “It’s very unfortunate. But it’s a pitting of American against American and honestly, it needs to stop.”

Watch above, via HLN.

Editor’s note: Acosta was misidentified in the chyron as CNN senior media correspondent. He is CNN’s chief White House correspondent.

[image via screengrab]

 

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/2vwM4Dm