Bernstein: Trump’s CNN tweet ‘anti-freedom of the press’

Veteran journalist Carl Bernstein on Sunday described a video posted by President Trump showing him beating up a person with a CNN logo superimposed over his face as “anti-freedom of the press.”

“It’s not just anti-CNN, it’s anti-freedom of the press, it’s anti-freedom of speech. It is a definitive statement by the president of the United States,” the Watergate reporter told CNN’s Brian Stelter on “Reliable Sources.”

{mosads}“It’s very disturbing. There is nothing lighthearted about it whatsoever — it is an incitement, it is definitive, as I say, of the way this president views a free press and its exercise under the First Amendment to the Constitution,” he continued.

“The nexus of fake news in America is the Trump White House,” Bernstein added. 

Bernstein’s comments came hours after Trump ramped up his attacks against CNN, tweeting a video showing him beating up an individual with the network’s logo on his face.

Trump has intensified his rhetoric against the press this week, tweeting personal attacks against MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, and bashing the media during a speech at a Washington, D.C. concert honoring veterans.

Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders last week defended Trump’s attack on Brzezinski, saying “the president in no way form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence.”

“If anything, quite the contrary,” she added.