Pompeo Smacks Acosta for Having Facts Wrong Then Asking 'Ludicrous' Question
The liberal media was all abuzz recently over an anonymous report published by The New York Times which alleged that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had once suggested to other administration officials — perhaps jokingly — that he “wear a wire” when meeting with President Donald Trump in order to gather evidence of his alleged mental instability to support invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from power.
The Daily Caller reported that this rather ridiculous story was brought up in the form of a question about the alleged 25th Amendment discussions posed to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a news conference at the U.N. on Monday, where Trump was scheduled to address the General Assembly on Tuesday.
The reporter who brought up the story was none other than CNN’s Jim Acosta, and both Haley and Pompeo let him know how “absurd” and “ludicrous” both his question and the allegation in general were, while also calling him out for getting the basic facts and premise of his question wrong.
First addressing Haley, Acosta said, “You are the one person here who has been with this administration from the beginning,” and then mentioned the story about Rosenstein and invoking the 25th Amendment. “Were you ever involved in any of those discussions? Were you aware of any of those discussions?”
“I said yesterday on the Sunday shows that, literally, I have never once been in the White House where that conversation has happened,” Haley replied.
“I’m not aware of any cabinet members that are even talking about that. It is completely and totally absurd. No one is questioning the president at all. If anything, we’re trying to keep up the pace with him, in the fact that he has a lot he wants to accomplish very quickly and we’re going to continue to support him in the way that he does that,” she added.
Acosta then attempted to ask Pompeo a follow-up question regarding North Korea — particularly about not having details of a deal ironed out prior to high-level summit meetings — but the secretary felt the need to first address Acosta’s initial line of questioning, snarkily fact-checking him in the process.
“Two things: Fact check, I’ve been with the administration since the beginning, too. That’s relevant,” said Pompeo, who first served in the administration as CIA director prior to transferring to the State Department.
“I’ll add, no discussion with me about the 25th Amendment in any way either, so you can now report that there are two senior leaders who’ve said that your question was ludicrous,” Pompeo added.
Pompeo attempted to move on to the North Korea part of Acosta’s questions, but the reporter interrupted to apologize for forgetting Pompeo’s role as the former CIA director and to wonder why Rosenstein would be talking behind the scenes about the 25th Amendment, if it were so “ludicrous.”
“I find the question ludicrous,” Pompeo replied. “I’ve been involved, I’ve been at the center of this administration, along with lots of other folks, from virtually Day One — I think it was actually day three or four — I’ve never heard anyone talk about it, whisper about it, joke about it in any way.”
“I’ve been in a lot of meetings with a lot of senior officials from this government,” he added, prior to transitioning to Acosta’s question about North Korea.
In that regard, Pompeo noted that “we went at this the other way for decades,” to no avail, and said “we’re coming at this from a different direction” by bringing together the two most senior leaders from North Korea and the U.S. in an effort to make actual progress toward denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
Acosta, like many other “journalists” in the liberal media, accepted the report from The Times about Rosenstein’s wearing a wire and invoking the 25th Amendment against Trump as if it were the gospel truth, largely because it fit into their preconceived notions and narratives about the mental state of the president.
But Acosta’s “ludicrous” focus on a story that may not even be true, at the expense of more focus on far more pressing international matters, serves to fit snugly with the growing perception that the “fake news” media care only about hurting, smearing and ultimately getting rid of Trump. That’s why it was so it was nice to see Haley and Pompeo verbally smack him back into place.
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