CNN chief says Trump’s attacks are boosting morale

CNN President Jeff Zucker declared on Thursday that President Donald Trump’s comments about the channel being fake news are a “badge of honor” and that aggressive coverage of the new administration has boosted employee morale.

As Zucker was talking over a lunch with reporters at Porter House in the Time Warner Center in New York, Trump was hosting a fiery press conference featuring a memorable back-and-forth with CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta, who tried to ask a question about the president’s attacks on CNN.

“I’m changing it from ‘fake news,’ to ‘very fake news,’” Trump quipped in response.

But both Trump and Acosta seemed to be enjoying the jousting, pointing to one of the odder patterns to emerge from the early days of Trump’s administration: the president engaging in all-out war with the media and both sides seeming energized by it — and, perhaps, benefiting from it.