White House Launches Personal Attack on CNN Reporter After Questioning Trump Assistant Issue

The US government has launched an open personal attack against CNN senior correspondent Kristen Holmes, after the journalist posed a critical question to President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.

The attack was delivered through the White House’s official ‘rapid response’ social media account. Besides calling Holmes a ‘disgrace to her profession’, the post controversially also dragged in the journalist’s personal life and children.

The incident began when Holmes asked Trump for his response to sharp remarks by Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. In his speech, Ossoff mocked Trump for being more focused on building a ballroom and travelling by private plane with his executive assistant, Natalie Harp.

Responding to the question in front of the media, Trump declined to address the substance of the issue and instead hit back with a mocking nickname for the senator, before finally telling Holmes to be quiet.

‘Be quiet, you are very rude. You are fake news and a fake reporter,’ Trump said to the journalists present while interrupting Holmes’s question.

Not stopping in the Oval Office, the White House continued its criticism on social media, calling Holmes’s question ‘disgusting and inhumane’, and claiming that Holmes’s children would be ashamed of their mother’s actions.

Responding to the attack, CNN immediately released an official statement defending its senior journalist. CNN stressed that the question posed by Holmes was highly relevant, well-founded, and voiced the public interest.

‘Public officials have the right to rebut reporting they disagree with. However, launching personal attacks against a journalist carrying out her duties is an act that lies beyond the propriety of the presidential institution and undermines the principle of press freedom,’ CNN asserted.

A wave of support for Holmes also came from fellow journalists and her colleagues in Washington, who deplored the escalation of verbal attacks against reporters while they perform their social oversight function vis-à-vis the government.