The reporter who accused the White House on Tuesday of "inflaming" tensions with the media defended his comments Wednesday, saying he's sick of being "bullied."

“I don’t like bullies,” Brian Karem, executive editor of The Sentinel newspapers, said on CNN.

“I’ve been tired of being bullied. I’ve been tired of being blamed. I’ve been called an enemy of the people. We’ve been told that we’re all fake media.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Karem voiced strong concerns over the way the media has been treated by the White House during Tuesday's press briefing and doubled down on those comments on CNN.

"I’ve been browbeaten for six months and told I’m the enemy. And to be quite honest, it’s not accurate, and I think it’s driving a wedge between us and the public," Karem said.

"I think it’s undermining the fourth estate. I think it’s very detrimental to the Constitution and the foundation of the republic."

He reiterated that the reporters in the White House press briefing room are "merely trying ... to do their job."

"And to be browbeaten every day and bullied isn’t right, and it’s got to stop," he said.

Karem on Tuesday confronted White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders during the White House press briefing.

Sanders had been asked about whether President Trump accepts the apology from CNN regarding a recent story it retracted about alleged ties between a Trump ally and a Russian investment fund.

Karem, a contributor to Playboy magazine, interrupted Sanders as she spoke about the media, saying she was "inflaming everyone right here right now with those words."

"This administration has done that as well ... Any one of us are replaceable, if we don't get it right, the audience has the opportunity to turn the channel or not read us. You have been elected to serve for four years at least, there is no option other than that," Karem said during the briefing.

"We are here to ask you questions, you are here to provide answers. And what you just did is inflammatory to people all over the country who look at it and say, 'See, once again, the president is right and everybody else is just fake media.' Everybody in this room is only trying to do their job.”