WATCH Sean Spicer Tear Into CNN’s Jim Acosta After What He Called Trump Voters
Source: https://goo.gl/RYjF46
It comes as no surprise that CNN’s Jim Acosta doesn’t think too highly of those of us who voted for President Donald Trump. However, what is shocking is how he thinks he can publicly spew his vitriol unchecked. Well, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer wasn’t having it, and he tore into Acosta after what the White House correspondent said about Trump’s supporters.
If you voted for President Donald Trump, CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta thinks you are a moron. That is the gist of what he said in a recent interview with Variety for a hit piece on the president that was published this week. But, what he did not expect was the shellacking he took from former White House press secretary Sean Spicer.
Acosta shared his interview time with CNN contributor April Ryan, another frequent critic of the president, to discuss what it is like to report on a “combative” White House. In other words, what it is like to spend every day covering the president and not covering for the president like they did for the entire administration of former President Barack Obama.
Acosta and Ryan said they were afraid that President Trump’s accusation of “fake news” at journalists would cause “anarchy” around the world. “Fake news, by the president saying this, is not just a cute little statement for some,” Ryan said. “This has tentacles; it is reaching overseas. I am hearing from European leaders who are saying it can really destabilize democracies. They are very concerned,” she added.
“For the most part it has been just an exacerbation of really inappropriate and occasionally violent wishes on social media,” she told Variety. “But for a few members, there actually have been interactions that I would say are unquestionably threats, where they need to get authorities involved. That is very worrisome and troubling.”
She does not believe that President Trump wants reporters to be attacked, but she thinks his words could cause that to happen. “Particularly in a crowd setting, the risk of inciting a crowd and things getting out of control is very real. And the United States has really never been a dangerous place to be an American political reporter, and I think that is a threshold I really don’t want us to cross,” she said.
But, Acosta took it further, insulting the intelligence of people who voted for President Trump. “The problem is that people around the country don’t know it’s an act,” he said. “They’re not in on the act, and they take what he says very seriously, and they take attacks from [former White House press secretary] Sean Spicer and Sarah Sanders and what they do to us on a daily basis very seriously. They don’t have all their faculties in some cases — their elevator might not hit all floors. My concern is that a journalist is going to be hurt one of these days.”
The CNN reporter took to Twitter to defend his statements and do damage control by claiming that his quote was misrepresented. “Regarding my interview with Variety, my comments have been twisted by some outlets. As you can plainly see, I’m not referring to Trump supporters. I am talking about people who threaten journalists.”
I get that Acosta thinks we cannot read, but those were his words we read. No one said they “heard Jim Acosta” say that the president’s supporters, “in some cases,” have an “elevator (that) might not hit all floors.” He said those words. He said them to another elitist reporter as he sipped espressos and laughed at the redneck hillbillies he thinks we are.
Sean Spicer was not impressed with Jim Acosta’s explanation either. Spicer tore into Acosta when he appeared on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday. Spicer said that if President Trump is an actor, “it’s a pretty good play.” And, he was just getting started.
“Act one, get more jobs for American people: complete. Act two, strengthen our position in the world: complete,” Spicer said. He also said that Acosta and people like him have this idea of the president’s supporters a lot like what Hillary Clinton did when she called them “deplorables.”
They sit in their ivory towers, and they have no idea of what is happening in the lives of everyday Americans. “For Jim not to understand that, and for him to continue to dismiss — and quite frankly make fun of and ridicule — people around this country is really sad,” Spicer said. “I don’t mind that from a liberal activist, but when you have a reporter … saying that the people don’t get it, that’s a problem.”
And, that is the issue. Jim Acosta is a liberal activist — not a journalist. He is aware that his fights with Sean Spicer, and now Sarah Sanders, bring his network ratings and bring him closer to the primetime opinion show that he desperately wants to host. If he has to insult us “deplorables” to get it, that is just fine with him.