Jim Acosta tells Colbert how he got Trump's supporters to stop screaming at him and flipping him off

During Wednesday's "Late Show with Stephen Colbert," CNN correspondent Jim Acosta said that he plans to continue his war for truth while covering the White House.

"What if we just do nothing?" Acosta asked, hypothetically. "What? Do we just do nothing?"

Acosta wondered if those who bash CNN expect the network to not fact-check what President Donald Trump says. He said it would be a disservice to the public if he didn't do the work as a journalist.

"All of our anchors, our photographers around the world, our producers, some of my fellow reporters who go into war zones and put their lives on the line, they're not the enemy of the people," he said. "My colleagues at ABC, CBS, NBC and yes, Fox News, they're not the enemy of the people either. In a government that is of the people, by the people and for the people there's no such thing as an enemy of the people."

"A lot of these people are well-intentioned," Acosta said about the Trump supporters who yelled at him in Tampa last week. "You know, they care about their country. I totally understand that. They really like this president, but they'll ask me, 'Why don't you report the good things he does?' I said, 'Listen, we just talked about the jobs numbers last Friday. We had good jobs numbers last Friday." And they say, 'OK. well, do you like the president?' And I said, 'That's not relevant. I don't have to like the president of the United States. He doesn't have to like me. We have jobs to do.'"

He noted that once he talks to people they tend to calm down, and some even want to take selfies with him.

"A lot of these folks get their impressions of what we do by watching other conservative outlets, they look at other conservative websites," he continued. "And these folks are focused on the coverage of the president's behavior more so than they are on the president's behavior. And to me, I think the president's behavior is more newsworthy than our coverage."

He explained that many of the people who approach him are getting their sense of the media twisted by those who simply want to do Trump's bidding.

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