CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta on Tuesday described Fox News programs hosted by Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson as “state TV” for President Donald Trump’s administration.
Acosta appeared on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show to plug his new book, during which he said that Hannity and Carlson’s shows are “very much the definition of propaganda and state TV.”
Hewitt, who is also an MSNBC contributor, pushed back, saying that nobody in the media is in the business of state TV.
“None of us get a script from the government, none of us do that,” Hewitt said.
Acosta disagreed.
“It sounds like that’s what’s going on over there [on Fox News],” the CNN reporter said. “It sounds like that’s the case.”
Acosta said that White House surrogates repeat the same talking points as those of Carlson and Hannity’s on their shows.
However, Acosta did give Fox credit for being one of the first news organizations to speak out when the White House took his press pass away last year, for which he was “enormously grateful.”
In an excerpt of Acosta’s book tweeted out on Friday, he described Carlson and Hannity as Trump’s “chief propagandists” who are too afraid of saying anything to Acosta’s face or debate with him on their shows despite attacking him on their programs.
Hannity responded to the charge later on Friday, tweeting “Sorry, I wont subject my audience to conspiracy theory fake news.”
Listen to the interview here (Acosta starts talking about Fox News at the 5:55 timestamp).
