President Trump and Jim Acosta clashed again on Friday during a Rose Garden press conference, with Trump telling the CNN White House correspondent to ask the families of those killed by immigrants without legal status if the border crisis was made-up.
The back-and-forth followed the president’s declaration of a national emergency, which attempts to secure $8 billion in additional funds for a wall along the U.S. southern border. The declaration faces certain court challenges, including from those who call Trump’s border crisis manufactured.
{mosads}“What do you say to your critics who say that you are creating a national emergency, that you’re concocting a national emergency here in order to get your wall?” Acosta asked.
“I’ll ask the angel moms,” Trump replied, pointing to mothers of victims who were in attendance. “What do you think, do you think I’m creating something?”
“Ask these incredible women who lost their daughters and their sons,” Trump added.
“This is real,” one mother could be heard saying.
“Your question is a very political question, because you have an agenda,” Trump concluded. “You’re CNN, you’re fake news. You have an agenda.”
Trump and Acosta have butted heads multiple times before, most notably in November when Acosta kept asking questions after the president attempted to move on to another reporter.
Acosta would not relinquish the microphone, leading to a White House intern attempting to take it back from him.
The incident prompted the White House to revoke Acosta’s White House press pass, a pass he ultimately gained back following a judge’s ruling that his Fifth Amendment rights had been violated.