WH in-town pool #5 — more Antifa roundtable quotes

The independent journalists at the roundtable took turns speaking about their experiences, with several saying they were attacked while covering Antifa in Portland.

The White House did not provide background information on the participants before the start of the event, but they do have name placards in front of their seats.

"Much of the legacy media has been ignoring it or covering for antifa," said Nick Sortor. He identified the journalists at the roundtable as "conservative journalists."

Sortor produced an American flag that he said was burned by a protester in Portland, and Trump asked him to give it to Attorney General Bondi so the protesters who burned it could be prosecuted.

Democrats and the mainstream media "will never wake up to that fact" that antifa "is a real thing," said Brandi Kruse. She said she was a former "mainstream" journalist in Seattle and joked that she had recovered from a case of "Trump derangement syndrome."

POTUS largely listened, but he did interject at one point to say his administration was successfully reducing crime in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Memphis and other cities. He said D.C. is now safe after he sent National Guard troops to the city.

"We're having a great impact in Memphis," Trump added.

That was followed by comments from other roundtable participants.

"The media has been demonizing us for so long," said one person who identified as a member of Turning Point USA. Your pooler cannot see her name placard, apologies. She added, "for almost ten years we've been getting assaulted on the streets."

The roundtable is still ongoing. As a reminder POTUS said at the top that he would take questions from the pool at the end.

Daniel Bush | White House Correspondent

NEWSWEEK

T | XXX-XXX-XXXX

E | [EMAIL ADDRESS] (mailto:[EMAIL ADDRESS])

W | newsweek.com

A | 1 World Trade Center, Floor 72, New York, NY, 10007