The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America

CNN’s chief White House correspondent takes on an anti-media president in this passionate memoir. Acosta recounts the challenges of reporting after President Trump labeled CNN and him personally as purveyors of “fake news” and “enemies of the people,” which precipitated death threats, confrontations with foul-mouthed Trump supporters at political rallies, and pipe bombs delivered to CNN headquarters. The narrative recounts the big stories from the Trump campaign and administration—probing the investigation into Russian collusion, the travel ban on people from majority-Muslim countries, immigration policy, and the soap opera of White House infighting—with the focus on Acosta and his tenacious efforts at briefings and press conferences to get his confrontational questions answered, to the point of getting his press pass temporarily revoked in 2018. (“Where does it say in the Bible that it’s moral to take children away from their mothers?” he asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders about Trump’s border policies after then–attorney general Jeff Sessions used Bible passages to support the separation of migrant families at the U.S. border.) Framing modern-day political journalism as a truth-vs.-Trump showdown, Acosta is forthrightly opinionated, writing that “neutrality for the sake of neutrality doesn’t really serve us in the Age of Trump.” Fans of the author’s hard-hitting reporting will love it, but critics who have accused him of grandstanding and bias may not have their suspicions allayed. Photos. [em](June) [/em]