Why Trump openly threatened ABC's Jonathan Karl amid Charlie Kirk row- ‘You have a lot of hate’
Trump threatened a reporter who questioned his administration's proposed crackdown on ‘hate speech’ following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
President Donald Trump threatened a reporter who questioned his administration's proposed crackdown on ‘hate speech’ following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week. The 79-year-old was boarding Marine One to go to London when he took questions on Tuesday morning. ABC News' Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl asked Trump about the criticism of his proposed crackdown, and the president started a long rant.
Trump vs Jon Karl
“A lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech,” Karl said, referring to AG Pam Bondi, to which Trump responded: “She’d probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. It’s hate. You have a lot of hate in your heart.”
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"Would that be appropriate?", the reporter questioned back.
"Maybe they’ll come after ABC. Well, ABC paid me 16 million dollars recently for a form of hate speech, right? Your company paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech, so maybe they’ll have to go after you", Trump said, referring to the lawsuit against ABC News.
Trump then claimed that he ‘wants everything to be fair’, further adding that the blame lies with the ‘radical left who have done tremendous damage to the country’.
Earlier in the day, Trump lashed out at a reporter from Australia who asked him whether is was ‘appropriate’ that his family's riches are growing while he is in office.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist John Lyons asked Trump whether a president in offices ‘should be engaged in so much business activity’.
“Well, I’m really not. My kids are running the business. I’m here,” the president responded. He then added, “In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now, and they want to get along with me.”
“You know your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I’m going to tell them about you. You set a very bad tone,” he said.
