Trump Shut Down A Journalist And A Repressive President Praised Him

In refusing to take a question from a CNN reporter, Trump put him "in his place," Turkish President President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country jails more journalists than any other, said on Thursday.

By
Hayes Brown
by Hayes Brown

BuzzFeed News Reporter

During his first news conference since the election, President-elect Donald Trump refused to take a question from CNN, deriding the outlet as spreading "fake news."

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

“No, I’m not going to give you a question," Trump yelled at CNN's Jim Acosta. "I’m not going to give you a question.”

“You are fake news,” he announced, having spent much of his earlier time during the conference addressing a CNN report about an unverified dossier of accusations against him — and BuzzFeed News' publication of the entire document.

But Trump got praise for his actions from an unsettling place: Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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Erdogan railed against people in the press as attacking Turkish solidarity during the Gezi protests in 2013 and later terror attacks, comparing the local media's actions to those of their US counterparts. "Mr. Trump put the reporter of that [media] group in his place there," he said.

According to the Daily Sabah, which posted the video of Erdogan's remarks, the president was speaking "with local administrators at the Bestepe Presidential Complex in Ankara" when he gave Trump the verbal pat on the back.

That's a little worrying as according to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, there are more reporters behind bars in Turkey than anywhere else on the planet.

Ozan Kose / AFP / Getty Images

Following a failed coup attempt in July, Erdogan launched a crackdown on journalists. At least 81 of them are behind bars and more than 100 outlets have been shutdown in the aftermath.

Even before Erdogan's statement, people who follow oppressive regimes were expressing their nervousness about Trump's dismissal of critical media at his press conference.

Nicholas Dawes @NicDawes

All over my TL, people from Turkey, Russia, India who recognize this moment and know what it portends https://t.co/7c3Bt5pxsN

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Lauren Bohn @LaurenBohn

Flashbacks to reporting at junta pressers in Egypt... yet this is even worse. https://t.co/IApNXtjAvO

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Alexey Kovalev @Alexey__Kovalev

Congratulation US media, you've just got a whiff of what covering Putin's pressers is like (we've been doing it for 13 years now w hiatus).

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