While speaking at an event at Newseum in Washington D.C. to honor the First Amendment, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace laid into Donald Trump. He accused the president of assaulting the freedom of the press, and therefore infringing on the First Amendment.
“I believe that President Trump is engaged in the most direct, sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history," Wallace said, “He has done everything he can to uncut the media to try and delegitimize us. I think his purpose is clear to raise doubts when we report critically about him and his administration that we can be trusted.”
"Back in 2017, he tweeted something that said far more about him than it did about us: 'The fake news media is not my enemy. It is the enemy of the American people,'" he continued.
Wallace added, “Let’s be honest the president’s attacks have done some damage. A Freedom Forum Institute poll this year found 29 percent of Americans think the First Amendment goes ‘too far.’ And 77 percent say ‘fake news’ is a serious threat to our democracy.”
“The bottom line is we’ve seen Presidents come and go. We will endure. So will Freedom of the Press," he concluded.
Wallace also noted that Bill McRaven, who was a Navy Seal for 37 years, described Trump's comments about the media as maybe "the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime" because they undermined the Constitution, The Guardian reported.
It is not the first time Trump and Wallace have sparred. In October, Trump tweeted after Wallace's coverage of impeachment proceedings against him that Wallace "will never be his father" — a reference to Mike Wallace, the prolific CBS interviewer who died in 2012.
Trump also called Wallace "nasty" and "obnoxious" in November after his interview with House Minority Whip Steve Scalise about the impeachment inquiry.
Here is Wallace's speech:
