CNN's Jim Acosta accused President Donald Trump of being a "purveyor of fake news" on CNN Wednesday night with host Don Lemon. Earlier in the evening, Acosta, speaking of the Trump White House, declared "what we're witnessing right now is the erosion of our freedoms."



Acosta said President Trump is "also" a purveyor of "fake news." The CNNer quickly corrected the 'also' part in his claim.



"The president of the United States as a purveyor of fake news. I shouldn't say 'also' like 'we' are. He is, himself, a purveyor of fake news," Acosta said.



From Wednesday's CNN Tonight with Don Lemon:





DON LEMON, CNN: Jim, the White House likes to attack the media for not paying attention to the good things, but oftentimes the agenda is overshadowed by the president's own affinity for pedaling fake news, right?



JIM ACOSTA, CNN: That's right. I just very quickly want to echo what [CNN political director] David Chalian was saying. I think that the White House, the president also handled the Justice Gorsuch matter very well, that from start to finish was handled extremely well by this White House. They did not put forward a nominee who was scandal-ridden or anything along those lines.



You're right, Don, when it comes to, and the president likes to tweet about this all the time and hit us calling us fake news, but let's put something on screen here to put things in perspective.



[On screen presentation titled 'President Trump And Fake Stories']



The president of the United States as a purveyor of fake news. I shouldn't say also like 'we' are. He is, himself, a purveyor of fake news.



He is the founding father of birtherism. The false claim that [Former] President Obama was born in another country. President Obama was born in Hawaii. He came out right after his inauguration and said his inauguration crowds were bigger than President Obama's when they weren't. We have photographic evidence from the National Park Service to prove that point.



He alleged millions of undocumented people voted against him and gave Hillary Clinton the popular vote in the 2016 election. The White House is just finally cobbling together a voter fraud commission that is going to investigate this. At the end of the day, Don, they're going to find out there was not millions of people voting fraudulently in this country as we all know.



He accused President Obama of wiretapping him at Trump Tower. As we followed that saga for several weeks, it started off as a claim of wiretapping then it became overall surveillance and then they were hitting Susan Rice for unmasking people improperly and then never produced any kind of evidence of wiretapping at Trump Tower.



Then he hinted at those James Comey tapes that never existed and I think, Don, this is the reason why the president has only held one news conference, one full news conference since coming into office, that one in February. It's because if he holds a news conference, we're going to ask all of these questions. What about the wiretapping at Trump Tower? What about the Jim Comey tapes? He just is not going to have answers for any of that. That is why he's been avoiding these kinds of questions.