One of the things supporters of the Trump administration love is the staff's refusing to kowtow to the liberal media. Time and again, President Trump and his associates have refused to remain silent when facing a hostile press.
Trump got the ball rolling at one of his first press conferences after being elected when he called CNN's Jim Acosta "fake news." Then, we had (now former) White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's infamous bickering with members of the White House press corps.
Now it's CIA Director Mike Pompeo's turn. He is the latest Trump White House employee to push back at the press when he told off a New York Times columnist.
The confrontation came at the Aspen Security Forum Thursday. Pompeo shamed columnist Bret Stephens for working for a paper that unmasked the new chief in charge of the agency's Iran operations in a piece published last month. The decision to publish the name was "unconscionable," he said.
The audience took a moment to let Pompeo's words sink in, then applauded him.
As Fox News's Ed Henry noted, the exposure of the clandestine official's identity could put his life in jeopardy. Judging by the national security threat the Times may have caused, "The Five" anchors agreed that Pompeo showed an awful lot of "restraint" during his conversation with the editor.
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Yet, Times editors defended their decision to publish the name because he had already been outed by other publications.
Pompeo also weighed in on Russia at Thursday's summit. He could not say whether they were a friend or an enemy, but he did note that the Kremlin likes to "stick it to America" - particularly by choosing to keep forces in Syria.
Oh, and he is "confident" they meddled in the election.
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