President Trump‘s hostility toward the press reached new lows on Wednesday during a press conference in which the 45th commander in chief addressed the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections.
His ongoing feud with CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent, Jim Acosta, led to the president, 72, calling the journalist, 47, “a rude, terrible” person as he tried to ask a question.
Acosta addressed the migrant caravan of nearly 4,000 Central Americans, mostly women and children, who are walking through Mexico seeking asylum in the U.S. In the past, Trump has made comments, which have since been refuted, that terrorists and gang members are among the travelers.
In response — as captured by C-SPAN — Trump began, “Here we go.”
Then, Acosta asked the president if calling the caravan an “invasion” negatively characterized immigrants, to which Trump answered that he wanted them to “come in legally.”
President Trump to Jim @Acosta: “You should let me run the country. You run CNN.”
“That’s enough. Put down the mic. CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude terrible person.” pic.twitter.com/GR9TIbKUok
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 7, 2018
Refusing to give up his microphone, Acosta pressed on, interrogating the president about special counsel Robert Mueller’s potential indictments resulting from his investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign.