Jim Acosta

We would be in the press corps.

We called it the press cage at these Trump rallies.

And there would be tens of thousands of people, and he would whip these people into a frenzy, calling us the disgusting news media, the dishonest news media, the liars, the scum, and so on.

And his supporters would come up to the press cage.

These were the bike racks that were assembled around us to protect us.

We also had bodyguards.

And they would scream at us and call us a traitor and all this other stuff.

It got to the point where not only did we need bodyguards, we had to run to our cars after the Trump rallies were over because we were worried they would kick the shit out of us.

Trump never got the message that the hostility that he peddled, the outrage that he put out there was absorbed by people and then directed back to us.

He gets into the White House.

He and I have that press conference where he calls me fake news and so on.

And it just sort of ratcheted up and got worse and worse and worse.

And I think what happened in his mind was it just, it changed from being an act to, oh, I think I see what I can do now.

I control this army of people.

I control

through this cult-like following, this ability to go after certain segments of American society.

And it was early on in his administration where I kind of got the sense that things were starting to change.

Because, you know, he still had this mentality very early on that, okay, this is still an act.

I got a call from Hope Hicks one day after a press conference.

Do you remember her?