Texas congressman: CNN reporter who was 'disrespectful' to Trump 'should be fired'
Republican Rep. Randy Weber of Texas tweeted Thursday morning that a CNN reporter he called "disrespectful" to President-elect Donald Trump during a press conference Wednesday "should be fired."
"The CNN reporter who was disruptive to the press briefing, & disrespectful to Trump-should be fired & prohibited from any press briefings," Weber wrote.
Trump on Wednesday blasted a CNN report that said intelligence officials provided briefing materials informing him of the existence of a dossier containing unverified Russian claims of compromising information about Trump.
Trump claimed that CNN "went out of their way to build up" the dossier, which was published in full by BuzzFeed on Tuesday. Trump also called BuzzFeed "a failing pile of garbage" and said the organization will "suffer the consequences" for publishing the document.
CNN reporter Jim Acosta repeatedly pressed Trump to let him ask a question during the Wednesday press conference amid his denunciations of CNN.
"Since you're attacking our news organization, could you give us a question?" Acosta shouted.
Trump refused, responding that "your organization is terrible" and telling Acosta to stop being "rude."
Acosta continued to pressure Trump, who refused and called CNN "fake news."
CNN did not publish the full memo as BuzzFeed did, however. It released a statement standing by its "decision to publish carefully sourced reporting about the operations of our government," which was "vastly different than BuzzFeed's decision to publish unsubstantiated memos."
Fox News anchor Shep Smith on Wednesday defended CNN, saying that their "correspondents followed journalistic standards and that neither they nor any other journalists should be subjected to belittling and delegitimizing by the president-elect of the United States."