Charles Ventura

USA TODAY

Following President Trump's scathing attack against the media at the Conservative Political Action Conference and the unsettling invitation-only gaggle with White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Friday, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith came to the defense of a rival network yet again.

During a news segment, the Shepard Smith Reporting host addressed Trump's assault of the media as "fake news" and "the enemy" of the American people.

“For the record, ‘fake news’ refers to stories that are created, often by entities pretending to be news organizations, solely to draw clicks and views and are based on nothing of substance,” Smith said. “In short, ‘fake news’ is made-up nonsense delivered for financial gain.”

“CNN’s reporting was not fake news,” Smith added, in reference to the news network's reporting that the FBI rejected a White House request to publicly knock down media reports about recent Trump-Russia links during the presidential election.

“Its journalists follows the same standards to which other news organizations, including Fox News, adhere," Smith said about CNN. "Senior administration officials regularly speak without attribution so that the public can be informed of what our government is doing — off the record. Just as CNN reports [Trump’s Chief of Staff Reince] Priebus sent officials to speak off the record against the Russia-Trump campaign reporting.”

Late Friday night, Trump doubled down on his assertion of the media, calling "fake news" a "great danger to our country" on Twitter: