White House press secretary Sarah Sanders declined to name members of the so-called "fake news media" that President Donald Trump calls the "true enemy of the people."
At Sanders' first news briefing in nearly four weeks, and first since a series of explosive devices were sent to CNN, which is a frequent target of Trump's, Sanders was directly asked by CNN reporter Jim Acosta on whether she would name who these "enemies of the people" are.
"The President's not referencing all media," Sanders said. "He's talking about the growing amount of fake news that exists in the country. The president's calling that out."
"Could you state for the record which outlets that you and the president regard as the enemy of the people?" Acosta responded.
"I'm not going to walk through a list but I think those individuals probably know who they are," Sanders said.
"Would that include my outlet which received a bomb last week?" Acosta asked.
"I don't think it's necessarily specific to a general broad generalization of a full outlet. At times, I think there's individuals that the president would be referencing," Sanders responded.
"So you're not going to state for the record that -- the president is going to say the fake news media are the enemy of the people. And if you're going to stand there and continue to say that there are some journalists, some news outlets in this country that meet that characterization, shouldn't you have the guts, Sarah, to state which outlets, which journalists are the enemy of the people?" Acosta asked.
"I think it's irresponsible of a news organization, like yours, to blame responsibility of a pipe bomb that was not sent by the president. Not just blame the president but blame members of his administration for those heinous acts. I think that is outrageous and I think it's irresponsible," Sanders said.
Cesar Sayoc, a 56-year-old Florida man, was arrested last week in connection to sending the explosive devices to targets of Trump's vitriol. Other targets included former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, former Attorney General Eric Holder, billionaire philanthropist and frequent donor to Democrats George Soros and actor Robert de Niro.
