MELTDOWN! Acosta: Trump Is Spreading ‘Virus’ Against the Media, Right Has Bigger Media Presence

Curtis Houck
March 19th, 2019 3:17 PM
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A day after he offered a tired assertion that it was “surreal” that he and his media colleagues were questioning the White House about President Trump’s mental stability, CNN chief White House correspondent and carnival barker Jim Acosta was back on Tuesday’s CNN Newsroom offering another lengthy diatribe and meltdown to the delight of his colleagues.

In four-and-a-half minutes, Acosta attacked the Daily Caller for a “softball” question to the President, bashed Trump for spreading a “virus” around the world that the media has a liberal bias, and even suggested conservatives have a bigger media and social media influence than liberals.

 

 

Acosta began with the topic of Daily Caller White House correspondent Saagar Enjeti’s question to President Trump concerning the Democratic Party and socialism. In what was Acosta’s latest hissy fit for not receiving a question, Acosta attacked “a reporter with The Daily Caller right at the very end” who brought up the left’s extreme policy proposals.

“You know, it was the question was asked in a way that really teed it up like a game of tee ball here in the Rose Garden. The President was just sort of served up a softball there when he was asked, you know, whether or not the Democrats are advancing a lot of socialist ideas,” Acosta complained.

Reacting on Twitter to Acosta, Enjeti dropped the hammer: “I tried something novel. Rather than tell the President what was happening on a particular issue, I asked him to tell me.” What an idea!

Acosta blathered on for a few more minutes before arriving at how both President Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro knocked the news media during the press conference. To Acosta, this served as more evidence that the President’s “virus” is spreading (click “expand”):

[T]his is something that we've seen since President Trump came into office, called this network fake news, has referring to the press as the enemy of the people and so on is that this is a virus that is spreading around the world. When you have the President of the Brazil calling the press fake news, he is — he is trying to essentially, you know, in a sycophantic sort of way, suck up to the President of the United States. There's no other way of putting it and trying to emulate him down as they call him in Brazil as the Trump of the tropics. You know, this is — this is another example of when the President of the United States says something here in the U.S. referring to the press as fake news, referring to the press in other derogatory terms, other leaders around the world, other governments around the world are listening and Jair Bolsonaro proved that to all of us here in this Rose Garden news conference, Brooke.

Host Brooke Baldwin attempted to interject, but Acosta wasn’t done airing his petty grievances. He seemed exasperated that Trump “talked about this conservative grievance that they're being discriminated against in social media” that, to this CNN character, is false.

Acosta’s evidence? Well, Trump having “a gazillion Twitter followers” and “a massive presence on Instagram, has a massive presence on Fakebook — Facebook.” as do “do lots of other conservative figures here in the U.S.”

Acosta concluded with, well, fake news:

[H]e likes to talk about how there's this media collusion game that is stacked against him when he has one of the most powerful social media voices throughout and so I think that just has to be said as well, it has to be put on the record that he is sort of, you know, pulling a three card monty in terms of, you know, how he's describing the situation. Conservatives aren't being discriminated and abused on social media. They have just as much of a landscape that they dominate as the left does and — and one could argue that they have a much bigger footprint when it comes to social media and the media landscape by and large, Brooke. 

For regular or even infrequent readers of NewsBusters, alarm bells should be going off for just how idiotic of a statement this was by Acosta. The easy answer to is to go check out any of the work by our colleagues at MRC TechWatch or the Free Speech Alliance, but here’s a few specific examples of online censorship:

And as for liberal media bias, well, either check out our Media Reality Checks, hit the backspace button to the NewsBusters homepage, or click on the logo at the top of page. It’s safe to say you’ll find more than enough evidence from just Tuesday alone that’ll nuke Acosta’s pontificating.

To see the relevant transcript from March 19's CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, click “expand.”

CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin
March 19, 2019
2:20 p.m. Eastern

JIM ACOSTA: You heard the President there, Brooke, right at the beginning of his comments before he was even asked a question saying that, you know, we don't want socialism coming to the U.S. I've been told for weeks now and we've seen this play out on social media and so on that the President, the Trump campaign, they plan to hit the Democrats over the head with this idea that they’re socialist from now until the 2020 election. You heard the President start his remarks at this joint news conference in that fashion and then he was asked that question by a reporter with The Daily Caller right at the very end. You know, it was the question was asked in a way that really teed it up like a game of tee ball here in the Rose Garden. The President was just sort of served up a softball there when he was asked, you know, whether or not the Democrats are advancing a lot of socialist ideas.

You heard Jair Bolsonaro go off on that as well and these two leaders almost sounded like brothers in arms when it comes to their feelings about that particular subject. Now, of course, you'll hear about a lot of Democrats say over the coming days that this is nonsense, that supporting concepts like Medicare for all, having health care for all Americans is not — is not socialism and as a matter of fact when the President was running for the White House, he also talked about universal health care if you go back and look at the archives. The President also talked about universal health care and that the government would pay for it at one point he said and so this is all going to be part of the conversation moving forward. I do think it's important that we note that when the President was asked about the situation, the crisis in Venezuela, he didn't really lay out a whole lot of specifics in terms of what this administration is going to do to keep that country from plunging into an even deeper crisis and what exactly the plan is if things completely break down in that country. You did hear the President of Brazil asked at one point whether or not he would be okay with stationing U.S. troops in Brazil on the border with Venezuela and he didn't really answer that question. He said he wanted to keep that close to the vest. He referred to a candidate back in the 2016 campaign who kept his plans close to the vest for ISIS. That was, of course, another tip of the hat to President Trump. 

There was a lot of that going on during this news conference, but I think, Brooke, the thing that has to be noted and we'd be remiss if we didn't note it is that when the President of Brazil mentioned the term fake news, he got sort of a smile and a nod from President Trump and, you know, this is something that we've seen since President Trump came into office, called this network fake news, has referring to the press as the enemy of the people and so on is that this is a virus that is spreading around the world. When you have the President of the Brazil calling the press fake news, he is — he is trying to essentially, you know, in a sycophantic sort of way, suck up to the President of the United States. There's no other way of putting it and trying to emulate him down as they call him in Brazil as the Trump of the tropics. You know, this is — this is another example of when the President of the United States says something here in the U.S. referring to the press as fake news, referring to the press in other derogatory terms, other leaders around the world, other governments around the world are listening and Jair Bolsonaro proved that to all of us here in this Rose Garden news conference, Brooke.

BROOKE BALDWIN: No. I noted it off the top that it was the Brazilian President who was the first to mention fake news. 

ACOSTA:: That's right and then the President did it in his remarks as well later on in the news conference. 

BALDWIN: He did. 

ACOSTA: Later on in the news conference, he talked about this conservative grievance that they're being discriminated against in social media. The President has, you know, a gazillion Twitter followers. He has a massive presence on Instagram, has a massive presence on Fakebook — Facebook. So do lots of other conservative figures here in the U.S. and so, you know, the President — he likes to talk about how there's this media collusion game that is stacked against him when he has one of the most powerful social media voices throughout and so I think that just has to be said as well, it has to be put on the record that he is sort of, you know, pulling a three card monty in terms of, you know, how he's describing the situation. Conservatives aren't being discriminated and abused on social media. They have just as much of a landscape that they dominate as the left does and — and one could argue that they have a much bigger footprint when it comes to social media and the media landscape by and large, Brooke. 

BALDWIN: #Bebest, Jim Acosta.

ACOSTA:: That's right.

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