Donald Trump just launched his most dangerous attacks yet on the U.S. press - and Fox News "news" anchors Harris Faulkner and Chris Wallace gave him a big thumbs up.

Trump held a shockingly unhinged press conference today, even by Trump standards, in which, among other things, a White House intern tried to grab a microphone from CNN reporter Jim Acosta. Later, the White House suspended Acosta’s press pass.

The Washington Post summed up the part of Trump’s meltdown, one day after his party lost control of the House of Representatives, that pertained to Acosta:

During the 90-minute press conference, Trump snapped at Acosta after he asked the president if he he had “demonized immigrants” by calling a caravan of Central American migrants “an invasion.” Following a lengthy and tense verbal back-and-forth, a female White House intern attempted to take the microphone away from Acosta.

Acosta held onto it, and raised his arm to stop the aide from taking the microphone from him, in the process making contact with her. “Pardon me, ma’am,” he told the woman.

After their exchange at the news conference, Trump told Acosta: “CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN. ... You’re a very rude person. The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible. And the way you treat other people are horrible. You shouldn’t treat people that way.”

[…]

Despite video, right-wing personalities continued to spread online the false allegation that Acosta had been seen “pushing and shoving a female White House aide."

Sure enough, Fox News jumped on the right-wing bandwagon attacking Acosta. And it wasn’t the opinion hosts but the supposed journalists Harris Faulkner and Chris Wallace. They spun Trump’s disgraceful, anti-American behavior as some kind of masterful handling of a miscreant media that should be obedient and subservient to Trump. Transcript excerpts below via Media Matters, with my emphases:

FAULKNER: Chris first of all, people who criticized this president for not a lot of access must not watch much, because every time he gets on anything that can fly or he wants to hold a news conference, it hits Twitter and then he pops up and takes questions. 

WALLACE: Well, this was an extraordinary performance, but it was -- it was classic Trump. And you saw all the notes that he can play. He was combative at times, he got into a fight with Jim Acosta at CNN, I have to say I thought that his -- Acosta's behavior was shameful [Faulkner groaned with disgust]… he just refused to sit down and stop answering questions. 

[…]

But also the tenor of the news conference, quite extraordinary. I mean, most of the people there were serious reporters asking the serious questions, but Jim Acosta, I thought, embarrassed himself today. 

What’s really embarrassing is a so-called news anchor who thinks a journalist “embarrassed himself” because he refused to stop asking questions of the most powerful man in the U.S.

Shame on Fox News.

Watch the reprehensible behavior below, first from Trump's November 7, 2018 press conference, via The Washington Post, then from Outnumbered Overtime, via Media Matters.