CNN's Jim Acosta fires back at 'liar' Sarah Sanders: 'The press is not the enemy'

CNN's Jim Acosta went on a self-described "rant" against White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders after she lashed out at him live during Thursday's press briefing.

During his impassioned tirade, the White House correspondent called the press secretary a "liar," said he was "tired" of being mistreated and insisted that the press is "not the enemy" of the American people.

During the briefing, Sanders used her own experience being asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia to attack the press.

"Repeatedly, repeatedly the media restarts personal attacks without any content other to incite anger," the press secretary said earlier. "The media has attacked me repeatedly, said I should be harassed as a life sentence. ICE officials are not welcomed in their place of worship. When I was hosted by the correspondence association you brought up a comedian to attack me."

Describing the interaction later, Acosta — who just days prior was shouted at by Trump supporters at a rally in Florida — said Sanders was showing her true feelings during her rant.

"I think what you saw happen here at the end of that briefing was the true feelings of the president, the true feelings of many of the people that work in this administration laid bare," Acosta told host Brooke Baldwin.

"They believe, it appears in their heart of hearts, that the journalists who cover this White House, the journalists who work in this city, who were just trying a few moments ago to hold some of these officials accountable about attacks on our democracy, that the people here who work at this White House all the way up to the president evidently believe that journalists are the enemy of the people," he continued. "Literally the enemy of the people."

Sanders, the correspondent noted, takes the White House press podium "on a regular basis and continued to tell the American people, you know, provable falsehoods, lies, and so on."

"Unfortunately, our job as journalists, as you know, Brooke, we have to call that stuff out," he continued. "We have to fact check them. We're fact checkers in real-time with this president because he tells falsehoods and lies so much."

Watch below, via CNN: