Trump, reporters spar as president starts trip
Won’t answer ‘stupid question’
NEW YORK — Before flying to Paris on Friday, President Trump insulted some more reporters, threatened that others may have their White House credentials pulled like CNN’s Jim Acosta, and disputed reports that his press secretary spread a doctored video of Mr. Acosta’s encounter with a White House intern.
During a brief media availability outside the White House, the president gave more fodder to fans who enjoy watching him scrap with journalists.
Mr. Trump said “nobody manipulated” a video distributed by White House press secretary Sarah Sanders that showed Mr. Acosta resisting an intern’s attempt to take a microphone from him during a news conference on Friday. A video expert had told The Associated Press that the video appeared doctored to speed up Mr. Acosta’s arm movement and make his gesture more threatening; the White House used that encounter to justify pulling Mr. Acosta’s credentials.
“It wasn’t doctored,” the president said. “They gave a close-up view. That’s not doctoring.”
Abba Shapiro, an independent video producer hired by The Associated Press to compare the footage tweeted by Ms. Sanders with the AP’s coverage of the news conference, said the alteration made was “too precise to be an accident.”
Two late-night comics, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, both said on their shows Thursday that Ms. Sanders should be fired for her action. “The fact that the White House press secretary is promoting this doctored video is reprehensible, and grounds for dismissal,” Mr. Colbert said.
While Mr. Trump called the reporter who asked about the video “dishonest,” that was mild compared to his treatment of April Ryan, a White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, and CNN’s Abby Phillip.
Ms. Phillip asked Mr. Trump whether he wanted Matt Whitaker, the newly appointed acting attorney general, to rein in special counsel Robert Mueller.
“What a stupid question you asked,” Mr. Trump replied. “What a stupid question, and I watch you a lot and you ask a lot of stupid questions.”
In response, CNN said through its Twitter feed that Ms. Phillip’s question wasn’t stupid. “In fact, she asked the most pertinent question of the day,” CNN said. Mr. Trump’s insults “are nothing new. And never surprising,” CNN said.
The attack on Ms. Ryan was unprovoked, although the president had appeared upset Wednesday when Ms. Ryan stood up and asked him, without a microphone, about voter suppression in the midterm elections. Ms. Ryan wasn’t among Mr. Trump’s questioners Friday.
“I watch her get up,” he said Friday. “I mean, you talk about somebody that’s a loser, she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. She gets publicity, and then she gets a pay raise, or she gets a contract with, I think CNN. But she’s very nasty, and she shouldn’t be.”
Ms. Ryan became a CNN contributor last year. She said on the network that the three presidents she covered prior to Mr. Trump may not have liked every question she asked, but understood why she did so.