CNN's Acosta — We've Replaced Hillary and Obama, Republicans Need Someone To Attack

Responding to criticism from Fox News over his reporting style which the network has characterized as inflammatory grandstanding, CNN’s Jim Acosta said he’s just become their punching bag.

“We’ve sort of replaced Obama and Hillary,” he told Brian Stelter on Reliable Sources today. “They need somebody to attack and I think that we’ve sort of filled that role. Part of the issue is that I think, you know, instead of wanting to focus on the president’s behavior, they’d rather focus on our reporting on the president’s behavior.”

Further straining the relationship between reporters from both outlets and the supporters of President Donald Trump, Stelter noted, is the burden on the press to fact check Trump on a laundry list of statements, and for some, those checks feel like critiques.

“There are folks on the conservative side, I refer to them affectionately as the MAGAphone,” Acosta replied. “They by and large just echo what the president wants to hear and what he wants to say. We see that a lot happening over on Fox News.”