Journalist April Ryan said in an interview that aired Thursday on “Rising” that the news media has been targeted for asking questions the Trump administration has deemed unfavorable.
“It’s putting a target on our heads because we are asking questions maybe that they don’t like,” Ryan, White House contributor for American Urban Radio Networks, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Jamal Simmons on “Rising.”
“For the last 21 years that I’ve been doing this I’ve asked the same kinds of questions, literally, of Bill Clinton, of George W. Bush, and of Barack Obama, and now this president,” she continued. “The only question I never asked those presidents that I asked this president was ‘Mr. President, are you a racist?’
“When they don’t like it [questions], when presidents don’t like it, yeah, there’s a little retaliation but never to go into this realm of uncharted territory, that actually puts our lives in harm’s way, and I say that because it’s real,” she said.
Ryan noted that some of the threats come from the general public. She said she has received “real death threats, to the point where we have to call the FBI.”
Ryan, who also is a CNN commentator, is promoting her new book “Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House.”
She has repeatedly clashed with members of the White House communications team, including press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former press secretary Sean Spicer.
Trump, himself, has maintained a contentious relationship with various journalists and news organizations and has frequently lashed out at journalists for stories says are unfavorable.