White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Saturday hit back at CNN anchor Jake Tapper's charge that the administration canceled a planned interview with National Security Adviser John Bolton because President Donald Trump snubbed the cable network's Jim Acosta on Friday in London.
"Instead of rewarding bad behavior, we decided to reprioritize the TV appearances for administration officials," Sanders tweeted:
Tapper tweeted earlier Saturday that Bolton was "locked in" for an interview for his "State of the Union" program Sunday but that it was canceled because "the president attacked CNN during his UK presser, and our WH correspondent tried to ask a question."
In London on Friday, Trump bashed CNN as "fake news" — along with ripping NBC News and The Star, a British tabloid — at his news conference with Prime Minister Theresa May.
"CNN is fake news," Trump said as Acosta repeatedly tried to query the president. "I don’t take questions from CNN.
"Let's go to a real network," Trump said, pointing to John Roberts of Fox News.
Roberts, who has worked at CNN and CBS News, then asked whether relations with Russia could ever improve as long as Moscow occupied Crimea.
He was later slammed on Twitter for not defending Acosta or ceding the microphone to him.
In a statement, Roberts said of his former CNN colleagues: "There are some fine journalists who work there and risk their lives to report on stories around the world.
"To issue a blanket condemnation of the network as 'fake news' is also unfair."
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