CBS reporter Major Garrett melted down on Tuesday as he reacted to CBSN losing its live feed after a Donald Trump press conference. The senior White House reporter began yelling at all the "dummies” responsible. CNN's Jim Acosta also got cut off.
While in mid-sentence, CBSN (the streaming version of CBS) lost its live feed of Garrett. A few minutes later, anchor Reena Ninan returned to him, hoping to talk about Trump and Baltic state leaders. Instead, Garrett began ranting about the power failure: “We should have a big piece of tape on every piece of plug. Don’t touch this, dummy! Dummy! Don’t touch this!”
Though unsure of the outage, Garrett unloaded: “When you people talking with microphones and cameras rolling and lights on, don’t pull the plug, dummy! I don’t know who the dummy was, but some dummy back there pulled the plug! Don’t pull the plug!”
Ninan, trying stop the train wreck, soothingly shifted the topic back to politics: “We would never pull the plug on you. And as you were saying, something very fascinating...”
The problem was not isolated to CBS. On CNN, President Trump hater Jim Acosta was midway through whining about Trump needling journalists:
It was a pretty remarkable exchange as you saw there at the very end. The President was egging on the President of Latvia to call on a Baltic reporter, not one of the U.S. reporters who were all clamoring to get that final quest—
When CNN finally returned to Acosta at the White House, he seemed to muse that it was Trump’s fault: “I won’t read into why we lost connection just a few moments ago.” MSNBC and Fox were both talking to in-studio guests when the mysterious feed problem. So, they were not impacted.
Transcripts are below:
CBSN presidential press conference
4/3/18
2:24pm ETMAJOR GARRETT: The President might very well be inclined —
2:27pm ET
REENA NINAN: Major, I didn’t pull the plug. I just want you to know that. It wasn’t me.
MAJOR GARRETT: Reena, it’s rookie day here in the East Room quite obviously. We should have a big, you know, piece of tape on every piece of plug. Don’t touch this, dummy! Dummy! Don’t touch this! When you people talking with microphones and cameras rolling and lights on, don’t pull the plug, dummy! I don’t know who the dummy was, but some dummy back there pulled the plug! Don’t pull the plug!
NINAN: We would never pull the plug on you. And as you were saying, something very fascinating.
CNN
4/3/18
2:24pm ET
JIM ACOSTA: It was a pretty remarkable exchange as you saw there at the very end. The President was egging on the President of Latvia to call on a Baltic reporter, not one of the U.S. reporters who were all clamoring to get that final quest—
...
2:25pm
ACOSTA: I won’t read into why we lost connection just a few moments ago.
