Acosta Gets Served: Ex-CNN Producer Attacks Jim Over 'Self-Serving Antics'
Following Friday’s White House event on the economy and tax cuts, CNN’s Jim Acosta took it upon himself to rudely shout unrelated questions at President Donald Trump after his speech.
Standing near what appears to be the back of the room, the CNN Senior White House Correspondent waited until audience members and the press began applauding the president’s December 2017 tax reform legislation before loudly yelling questions from the back of the room.
“Mr. President, will you stop calling us the enemy of the people, sir? Will you stop calling the press the enemy of the people, sir? Mr. President, will you stop calling the press the enemy of the people, sir?” he shouted repeatedly.
Other attendees were clearly aggravated by the disturbance, some even turned around to shush him. Of course, that didn’t stop him from continuing to loudly repeat the question a few more times for good measure.
The outburst, which was not at all related to the content of the meeting, quickly caught the attention of former CNN producer Steve Krakauer.
Krakauer took to Twitter Friday morning to express his disappointment with Acosta’s “self-serving” behavior.
“Truly an embarrassment, on multiple levels. Jim Acosta’s self-serving antics give all good journalists a bad name,” he wrote.
Krakauer went on to point out that rather than choosing to use his platform to honor the five victims killed in the Capital Gazette shooting, Acosta wasted no time in pushing the focus back to demonizing Trump.
“On a day journalists could honor the memory of fellow reporters tragically killed due to a deranged person with a vendetta going back years, Acosta tries to shift the blame to Trump, thus validating many Americans’ feelings about the Acela Media (that existed long before Trump),” Krakauer continued.
And Krakauer has a point. Before Trump went on to discuss the state of the American economy, he took a moment to recognize and show respect for the reporters who lost their lives just one day earlier. What justifiable purpose could Acosta have had for choosing that day in particular to draw attention away from his journalism colleagues to place blame on the president?
“This attack shocked the conscience of our nation and filled our hearts with grief,” Trump said. “Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job.”
And like all Americans, the president should be able to do his job without being verbally attacked.
A smug Acosta took to Twitter that morning, basking in what he appeared to believe to be a revelation of Trump, not the press, as the enemy of the people.
“I tried to ask the president if he would stop calling us the enemy of the people. He did not respond,” he wrote.
“We also had a few folks who shushed is in the audience. Of course we are not going to be shushed,” he later continued.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Acosta has felt the need to shout questions inappropriately at the president and others. As reported by The Hill, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale has called for Acosta’s press credentials to be revoked multiple times, as his disruptive presence has proven to be increasingly unprofessional.
Even so, when discussing his treatment by the media later that day, President Trump clearly remained unfazed by Acosta’s childish pestering.
“Obviously, the press has treated me very badly, in the meantime I’m president, so, I guess they didn’t treat me badly enough…I have a lot of respect for the media, tremendous respect. Some of the greatest people I know are reporters and people in the media,” Trump said according to a White House pool report. “But also you have, like anything else, people that are bad.”
In his latest attempt to apparently show how trustworthy the press is, Acosta has done more damage than he cares to realize. His clear disdain for the president and general decency has had the opposite effect, giving the American people yet another reason to stop trusting the press.
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