Daily Mail’s David Martosko White Knights for CNN’s Jim Acosta

The Daily Mail’s David Martosko invited White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to condemn supporters of President Donald Trump who jeered at CNN’s Jim Acosta during a Tuesday rally in Tampa, FL.

Acosta was heckled by rallygoers with chants including: “CNN sucks!”

This is what’s happening at the Trump rally in Tampa as @Acosta does a live shot. Folks booing, shouting “traitor,” and “you’re a liar.” pic.twitter.com/aUoUF4cwcB

— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) July 31, 2018

Partial transcript below:

MARTOSKO: Does the president encourage the support of people who show up last night in these QAnon and Blacks for Trump fringe groups, and secondly, 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 toward journalists doing their jobs in a situation like that or in any situation?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: On the first part, the president condemns and denounces any group that would incite violence against another individual and certainly doesn’t support groups that would promote that type of behavior. We’ve been clear about that a number of times since the beginning of the administration.

On the second part of your question, the president, as I just said, does not support violence against anyone or anything. We’ve been very clear every single time we’ve been asked about that. When it comes to the media, the president does think that the media holds a responsibility. We fully support a free press, but there also comes a high level of responsibility with that.

The media routinely reports on classified information and government secrets that put lives in danger and risk valuable national security tools. This has happened both in our administration and in past administrations. One of the worst cases was the reporting on the U.S. ability to listen to Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone in the late nineties. Because of that reporting, he stopped using that phone and the country lost valuable intelligence.

Unfortunately, it’s now standard to abandon common sense ethical practises. This is a two-way street. We certainly support a free press. We certainly condemn violence against anybody, but we also act that people act responsibly and report accurately and fairly.

MARTOSKO: Nobody was being violent, last night. They were trying to prevent a broadcaster from getting his broadcast out and yelling that his network sucks. Is that right or wrong?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: I’m sorry, what was the first part of question?

MARTOSKO: I said no one was being violent last night in terms of hitting anybody, and no broadcaster was broadcasting state secrets. They were trying to do standups at a public rally, and you had people trying to yell over them, preventing them from doing their jobs, and yelling that their network sucks on live TV. Does the White House support that, or not?

HUCKABEE SANDERS: While we certainly support freedom of the press, we also support freedom of speech, and we think that those things go hand-in-hand.

Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Joel Pollak noted via Twitter that the First Amendment is not undermined via public ridicule of news media figures.

.@dmartosko Freedom of the press does not depend on CNN being protected from jeers at a public event.

— Joel B. Pollak (@joelpollak) August 1, 2018

I didn’t mention the First Amendment. I wanted to know if the White House would condemn the behavior.

— David Martosko (@dmartosko) August 1, 2018

So the takeaway is that the White House won’t discourage the president’s crowds from shouting down reporters and yelling that their networks suck during live broadcasts. Good to know. There’s a First Amendment tension between speech and press, and ultimately one side must lose.

— David Martosko (@dmartosko) August 1, 2018

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