Donald Trump once again let CNN reporter Jim Acosta get the better of him during his press conference in India on Tuesday. No doubt Trump called on Acosta as an opportunity to rant about how mean CNN is for reporting facts about him, but this is not Acosta’s first rodeo. He was ready.
When Trump predictably attacked CNN in response to Acosta’s question—again, a question Acosta got to ask so that Trump could attack CNN—Acosta didn’t flinch. “Mr. President,” he said, “I think our record on delivering the truth is a lot better than yours sometimes, if you don’t mind me saying.”
Acosta asked Trump a substantive multipronged question about Russian interference in the 2020 elections and his appointment of Richard Grenell as the acting director of national intelligence.
“First of all, I want no help from any country and I haven’t been given help from any country,” Trump responded, falsely.
“If you see what CNN, your wonderful network, said, I guess they apologized, in a way, for, didn’t they apologize for the fact that they said certain things that weren’t true?” Trump continued. “Tell me, what was their apology yesterday, what did they say?”
“Mr. President, I think our record on delivering the truth is a lot better than yours sometimes if you don’t mind me saying.”
Trump had his attack ready, though, and wasn’t letting go. “Let me tell you about your record, your record is so bad you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You have the worst record in the history of broadcasting.”
”I’m not ashamed of anything, and our organization is not ashamed,” Acosta replied.
A 2012 study found that Fox News makes viewers less informed than if they watched no news at all. Just saying.
During the same press conference, Trump lied about the number of people in the U.S. with coronavirus; strongly hinted at a call for violence against House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff; called on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Sonia Sotomayor to recuse themselves from cases before the Supreme Court involving him; and said of maps of ISIS territory in 2017, “In fact, they had it painted a certain color. I won't tell you what color because it doesn't matter. Somebody will say it was a Republican color, so I don't want to get people confused. But it happened to be red.” Is it just me, or is Trump’s “I’m not going to tell you, here’s a hint, here’s the answer” speech pattern cropping up more often recently?
Just another (frightening, depressing, threatening) day of Trump being Trump.