New York Times reporter Kenneth P. Vogel on Monday shared a voicemail of a man threatening him and calling him an “enemy of the people.”
The voicemail, which Vogel posted on Twitter, began by sarcastically praising Vogel as a “genius,” then changed tones.
“I mean, let’s face it. Ok. Hillary lost. You supported a criminal. You still support that criminal,” the man on the voicemail says. “You’re the problem. You are the enemy of the people. And although the pen might be mightier than the sword, the pen is not mightier than the AK-47.”
The voicemail added, “And just remember Ken, there’s nothing civil about a civil war.”
President Trump has repeatedly dismissed what he calls “the fake news media” as an “enemy of the people,” a cry taken up by many of his supporters.
{mosads}Forty-eight percent of Republicans — a plurality — agreed with that characterization in a survey released earlier this month, compared to only 26 percent of independents and 12 percent of Democrats.
In a tense confrontation with CNN correspondent Jim Acosta on August 2, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused multiple requests to state definitively that the media is none an enemy of the people.
“I think the president has made his position known,” Sanders said. “It’s ironic, Jim, that not only you and the media attack the president for his rhetoric when they frequently lower the level of conversation in this country.”
“I’m tired of this,” Acosta said on CNN after the exchange. “It is not right, it is not fair, it is not just. It is un-American to come out here and call the press the ‘enemy of the people.'”
“Fellow Americans are not the enemy of fellow Americans,” he added later. “Forgive me for going on a rant, but I think that they’ve lost sight of that here at this White House.”
The White House’s attacks on the press have led to increasing concerns of potential violence against American journalists.