'Traitor!': CNN reporter Jim Acosta heckled by 'CNN sucks!' chants at Trump rally

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta

• Supporters of President Donald Trump heckled CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta at a presidential rally in Tampa Bay on Tuesday.
• Attendees chanted "CNN sucks" and shouted, "traitor," and "you're a liar" as Acosta reported on camera from the event. 
• Acosta has frequently clashed with White House officials and is regularly denied questions by the president, who calls his network "fake news."

CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta was loudly heckled by supporters of President Donald Trump at presidential rally in Tampa Bay on Tuesday. 

As Acosta - a sharp questioner of the president and a frequent target of his ire - reported live from the event, a crowd of rally attendees surrounding him chanted "CNN sucks" and shouted, "traitor," and "you're a liar." 

Several reporters on the ground documented the incident. 

Acosta, who frequently butts heads with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders during press briefings, was similarly heckled by Trump supporters at a June rally, where he was both yelled at and asked for autographs. Earlier this month, the president denied Acosta the opportunity to ask him a question at a press conference in the UK, calling CNN "fake news." 

On Monday, Acosta was yelled at while asking the president a question about Russian collusion following a news conference in the Oval Office with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

White House staffers yelled over him, pressing him to leave the room. 

"Move, Jim. Let's go. Keep going Jim. Let's go. Jim, we're leaving. Come on Jim. Go. We're done," yelled one White House staffer.

Right-wing pundits, including Sean Hannity and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, celebrated the incident, while those on the left celebrated the veteran CNN reporter as a hero of the anti-Trump "Resistance."

Acosta has repeatedly defended his practice of shouting questions at the president - something he's done on multiple occasions after the president either stopped taking questions from reporters or refused to take any at all.