CNN host: Trump wants to run against the media in November

CNN media reporter Brian Stelter said President Trump’s attacks on the media show that he wants to run against the press in November’s midterm elections.

The “Reliable Sources” host said on BBC’s “Newsnight” on Friday that while most Americans know the press is not the “enemy of the people,” the president is using the phrase as a “rhetorical device.”

{mosads}“And he’s ratcheting it up because he wants to run against the media in the U.S. midterm elections, even though we are not on the ballot,” Stelter said. 

“There is cause for concern about security that didn’t exist three years ago,” says the CNN’s Brian Stelter on being asked if journalists in the US feel threatened following President Trump’s repeated attacks on the media.@brianstelter | @MarkUrban01 | #newsnight pic.twitter.com/bT2QM8lXlP

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) August 3, 2018

Stelter added that while Trump has attacked the media since his days on the campaign trail, Trump’s recent rallies have created “a renewed sense of concern about his behavior, the behavior of the crowds that surround him and his talk of ‘enemy of the people.’ “

Some Republicans have raised concerns about Trump’s frequent rallies, during many of which he often goes off script, fearing the rallies could alienate GOP voters who do not align themselves with the president’s base.

The president has stepped up his attacks on the press of late: Trump tweeted on Thursday that “the FAKE NEWS, which is a large percentage of the media, that is the enemy of the people!”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday also refused to say that the media is not the “enemy of the people,” after being pressed to do so by CNN’s Jim Acosta during a heated exchange at the day’s press briefing.

Acosta walked out of the briefing early after Sanders refused to defend the press.

Ivanka Trump broke with her father earlier on Thursday, saying that she does “not feel that the media is the enemy of the people,” a statement which her father later attempted to spin in his favor.