Whether he was joking or not, CNN senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta made a fool of himself on Wednesday afternoon, spreading fake news that President Trump “now has the world record for injecting politics into the aftermath of a terror attack” for suggesting changes to immigration policy after Tuesday’s Manhattan terror attack.
Turns out, as we’ll see, the news media, and particularly CNN, have egg on their faces if they want to make that statement, whether it’s U.S. terror attacks in Boston, Fort Hood, Orlando, or San Bernardino.
The liberal showman was teed up by afternoon CNN Newsroom host Brooke Baldwin, who lamented Trump’s “stunning remarks...in response to this attack” and how “we’re not even really 24 hours — barely 24 hours in, and the President is already pushing Congress for several major changes.”
Acosta took Baldwin’s setup and put forth his own snide remarks [emphasis mine]:
I think President Trump, Brooke, now has the world record for injecting politics into the aftermath of a terror attack. That is exactly what has happened in the last 12 hours or so as the President has been tweeting about this and if you look at the comments he made at the beginning of his cabinet meeting, in addition to regarding the U.S. Justice system as a joke and a laughing stock, he also called about — or called for, I should say, sweeping changes to the nation's immigration system saying that we should get rid of this diversity lottery system that has been in place for almost two decades. Keep in mind when the President blames the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats for this, this was a program put in place by Democrats and Republicans and there was an effort in 2013 by the so-called Gang of Eight on Capitol Hill in the Senate that tried to do away with it. Republicans and Democrats. So the President is playing politics with this[.]
Acosta then aired a clips from earlier from Trump but also Schumer, who engaged in some sudden respect by praising then-President George W. Bush’s response to 9/11. Before going back to Baldwin, Acosta lamented how the Trump team wanted “to wait when it comes to legislative discussion about going after gun control” following the Las Vegas shooting.
“[B]ut when it comes to what happened in New York City, when it's a terror attack involving someone coming in from outside of the country, President immediately wants to have a conversation about immigration. So just sort of a night and day, a tale of two Trumps when it comes to the response of these two attacks,” he concluded.
Now, let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? First, here’s some NewsBusters headlines from the first hours after the Islamic terror attack on Fort Hood:
- CBS & NBC Fail to ID Hasan as Muslim; ABC's Raddatz Relays: 'I Wish His Name was Smith'
- NBC Analyst Unsure Ft. Hood Shooting Was Terrorism
- CNN Zeroes-In on 'Right-Wing' Backlash Against Muslims From Pajamas Media
- CBS’s Schieffer Blames Army for Ft. Hood Shooting
- CNN Misquotes Ft. Hood Private to Cast Doubt on Cries of 'Allahu Akbar'
Not convinced that Jim Acosta is a shameless fool? Let’s move forward to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Less than an hour after the first reports came in, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof connected the explosions to Republicans while MSNBC’s Luke Russert wondered if the act was perpetrated by a home-grown terrorist (instead of, as we would learn later, Islamic terrorists).
Chris Matthews also went down that route, speculating that “normally” such acts “tend to be on the far right” and especially because it occurred on Tax Day.
Going forward a few years, how did the liberal media initially react to the Islamic terror attack in San Bernardino, California? If Jim Acosta wants to talk about world records, his own employer has a better shot at that title based on how they behaved on December 2, 2015.
Barely a few hours into the incident, CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes predicted that the shooting was carried out by “an anti-government domestic militia group” despite his admission that he had “no information” to support it.
“If it's county employees having some type of a banquet there, that takes on more of a domestic militia group, an anti-government domestic militia group wanting to attack the government than it does international terrorism where they're usually on suicide mission,” Feuntes proclaimed.
Later that day on CNN Tonight, criminologist and guest Casey Jordan blamed the shooting on not terrorist Syed Farook and his wife but his own coworkers.
Jordan hypothesized that Farook could have been a “disgruntled employee” triggered by the holiday party that same day:
They can have Arabic or Middle Eastern names as well, but the key is that from the beginning everything that was reported about him, going into this conference room where there was a holiday party which may have been offensive to him.
Lastly, there was the June 2016 Islamic terror attack on the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando. Well, faux Republican and ABC useful stooge Matthew Dowd blamed the 2016 election rhetoric and guns on the attack before we even knew how many people had died inside the nightclub.
Also that morning, NBC’s Tom Brokaw lamented that “everything seems to get settled by a gun” while NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt bemoaned how such acts are as frequent as hurricanes due to a lack of gun control, leaving innocent lives on a “hamster wheel” of death if gun control isn’t passed.
To make sure that CNN wasn’t left out, OutFront host Erin Burnett touted Democratic Congressman Alan Grayson’s pleas for gun control as the “correct” viewpoint to have after this act of radical Islamic terror.
So, if Jim Acosta wants to lecture the President about playing politics, the CNN showman should examine the work of his employer and the rest of the liberal media first.
Acosta’s shenanigans were brought to you by CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin advertisers Best Western, Liberty Mutual, Norton by Symantec, and T-Mobile.
Here’s the relevant transcript from November 1's CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin:
CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin
November 1, 2017
2:07 p.m. EasternBROOKE BALDWIN: I do want to get to the President’s stunning remarks, though, in response to this attack, including calling the U.S. Justice system a joke. So, let's go to our senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta. And, Jim, this story started breaking at the end of my show yesterday, we’re not even really 24 hours — barely 24 hours in, and the President is already pushing Congress for several major changes.
JIM ACOSTA: Right. I think President Trump, Brooke, now has the world record for injecting politics into the aftermath of a terror attack. That is exactly what has happened in the last 12 hours or so as the President has been tweeting about this and if you look at the comments he made at the beginning of his cabinet meeting, in addition to regarding the U.S. Justice system as a joke and a laughing stock, he also called about — or called for, I should say, sweeping changes to the nation's immigration system saying that we should get rid of this diversity lottery system that has been in place for almost two decades. Keep in mind when the President blames the Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democrats for this, this was a program put in place by Democrats and Republicans and there was an effort in 2013 by the so-called Gang of Eight on Capitol Hill in the Senate that tried to do away with it. Republicans and Democrats. So the President is playing politics with this and here's a bit what he had to say when he was talking to his reporters just a short while ago.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I want to immediately work with Congress on the diversity lottery program, on terminating it, getting rid of it. [SCREEN WIPE] We want people that are going to keep our country safe. We don't want lotteries where the wrong people are in the lotteries and guess what, who are the suckers that get those people?
ACOSTA: Now, the President says he wants to change over to a merit based immigration system. That is, of course, the same immigration that policy adviser Steven Miller was talking about at the White House a couple of months ago. Brooke, I've talked to Republican sources up on Capitol Hill who say there is just no appetite for that right now. Keep in mind, immigration changes have been talked about for several weeks now as part of that fix to relieve the fears of those dreamers that are caught in limbo right now. There’s really just no unity in other party right now, certainly not among both parties what to do about immigration right now in this country. But Senator Chuck Schumer who was under attack by the President earlier this morning, he held a press conference, called to reporters and said the president needs to stop tweeting and start leading. Here's what he had to say.
DEMOCRATIC SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER (N.Y.): New Yorkers and all of us compare President Bush right after 9/11 and President Trump right after this horrible terrorist attack. President Bush united us. He had us in the White House the next day saying how can we work together. All President Trump does is take advantage, horrible advantage of a tragedy and try to politicize and divide. It doesn't work with New Yorkers. It doesn't work with Americans. And, in fact, if he really wanted to do something, the way we can stop terrorism is anti-terrorism funding to help our New York Police Department and all of our police departments. He cut that in the budget he proposed.
ACOSTA: And one other thing we should point out, Brooke, and you know this because you covered what happened in Las Vegas very closely, in the aftermath of Las Vegas, the President said we need to wait when it comes to this legislative discussion about going after gun control, talking about gun safety laws. The President wanted to wait in that instance, but when it comes to what happened in New York City, when it's a terror attack involving someone coming in from outside of the country, President immediately wants to have a conversation about immigration. So just sort of a night and day, a tale of two Trumps when it comes to the response of these two attacks. Brooke?
BALDWIN: Tale of two reactions. Two responses.
