Trump fends off being Acosta'd by the media
Reporter attacks in wake of Dem gains
Credit: AP
President Donald Trump looks on as a White House aide attempts to take away a microphone from CNN journalist Jim Acosta during a news conference in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 7, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Real News: There is a war between Donald Trump and the media.And it is now very clear whose war it is, after White House reporters, emboldened by their Democratic allies’ advances in the House, launched a frontal assault on the president yesterday.
They brought out the big guns and threw everything they had at him. They hit him with racism. Xenophobia. And the only thing that could possibly be worse than any of that — what is undoubtedly his worst offense — his hostility toward them.
It got ugly fast. Just not the way they expected. They made the mistake of believing their own propaganda. To this battle of wits, as a wise man once said, they came unarmed.
CNN starlet Jim Acosta pressed the president on describing the migrant caravan as an “invasion.”
Trump responded, “I consider it to be an invasion.”
Acosta at that point stopped playing reporter — not that he has been one for years now — and just started arguing.
“It’s not an invasion,” Acosta said, again and again.
Trump soon tired of it.
“I think you should let me run the country, you run CNN, and if you did it well, your ratings would be much better,” Trump said — a low blow, because ratings, disguised as moral superiority, are what this has always been about.
Trump called on another reporter but Acosta butted in with another favorite media talking point — the wholly Democrat-concocted notion that Trump is president only because of Russian intervention, and the resulting evidence-free investigation.
It was obvious that Acosta was not there for an answer. He was there to call the president a hateful racist and to argue. When a White House staffer tried to take away the microphone he resisted, saying, “Pardon me, ma’am.”
Acosta continued to disrupt before Trump squashed him.
“You are a rude, terrible person,” Trump said. “You shouldn’t be working for CNN.”
Hard to argue with the facts.
The White House has since suspended Acosta’s press pass.
Trump ignored Acosta’s protests, moving on to NBC reporter Peter Alexander. Alexander picked up the banner for his fallen CNN comrade and charged the president with “pitting Americans against each other.” The president, repeatedly interrupted, was not afforded an opportunity to answer.
When he managed to get a word in, Trump accused Alexander of parroting Acosta.
After another series of insinuations disguised as questions about hostility and hate crimes, the president was asked — or rather, informed — by PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor, “On the campaign trail you called yourself a nationalist. Some people saw that as emboldening white nationalists. Now people are also saying that the Republican Party is seen as supporting white nationalists because of your rhetoric.”
“That’s such a racist question,” Trump answered. “To say that is so insulting to me.”
Trump was wrong, of course. Not about Alcindor’s racist assumptions and obvious insult. But it wasn’t a question at all. For most of the White House press corps, it was their press conference, to spread their message, not his. And that would be the accumulation of smears they threw at him.
Unfortunately, these so-called reporters learned nothing from the Kavanaugh hearings. When you try to smear someone with falsehoods, the one who ends up splattered will most likely be yourself.
Trump wasn’t cowed. He threw their accusations back at them. And though this isn’t what you’ll see on any of their Fake News sites, he beat them at their own game. This war the media initiated on Donald Trump in 2016 isn’t going well for them.
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