OF THE
TIMES
The US president clashes with a reporter from CNN, yet the fallout turns into an argument about whether a young female White House staffer was inappropriately touched. This is American politics in 2018, ladies and gentlemen.Update 2: Aaand Acosta is still making it all about him:
The bad tempered back and forth between CNN's Jim Acosta and Donald Trump was the kind of exchange where it's hard to pick a good guy.
Acosta attempted to lecture Trump about his views on immigration while hogging the mic, and Trump called Acosta "rude and terrible". Just standard stuff. Like a couple of toddlers interacting, only one has nuclear weapons and the other has a primetime TV audience.
The journalist has since had his press credentials for the White House revoked, not because Trump doesn't like him, but because, according to Trump's Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, he placed "his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern."
Didn't see that one coming did you?! Acosta responded by calling the accusation 'a lie.'
Here's a completely objective, non-partisan, non-political description of the incident that led to this accusation against Acosta.
The CNN correspondent was refusing to give up the microphone, a female White House intern attempted to take the microphone off him. She was a bit snatchy, he was overly-determined to keep hold of the mic, the two came into very brief contact in the strictly non-Weinstein sense of the word, then it was over. Watch the video.
So, why then has this blown up into a debate about who touched who, where and how?
Another commentator accused the staffer of "blind obedience" to Trump for trying to do her job. That's a pretty harsh character assassination based on one single 10 second non-incident.
One of the reasons is that in the current political climate, it doesn't really matter what the video shows, or what actually happened because political ideology will drive peoples' conclusions.
On the one hand you have the White House making accusations of hands being placed inappropriately which seems a little strong, but is good enough for right-wing pundits to take at face value and run with.
Then, rather than rise above the bait, some liberal commentators decide to counter by claiming that actually, it was the intern that touched Acosta! One even made a Monday Night Football style slow-mo analysis to make the point.
The person who really deserves sympathy is the intern. She attempted to do her job, didn't get the mic and will now have to answer questions about whether she felt she was touched inappropriately.
If she says 'yes' she will upset the press corp and the Trump-hating left who would normally be on her side in issues of consent. If she says no, she'll make the White House look stupid and upset Trump. She is a victim of the polarisation of politics when truth is not what you see, but what you need it to be.
In the meantime, Trump manages to divert attention from a wobbly economy and the fact he just lost control of the House, and Acosta gets a few publicity points too.
Jim Acosta's Wednesday went from bad to worse after the CNN correspondent fought with US President Donald Trump in front of the world's media, was accused of assaulting an intern, and then lost access to the White House.
As if to add insult to injury, security had some trouble extricating Acosta's White House pass from his lanyard as he waited awkwardly before them, camera in hand.
Standing out in the cold, night air and with a distinct air of pathos, Acosta filmed the cringeworthy encounter with a Secret Service agent. In a possible appeal for clemency, or perhaps just passing the time now that he can't enter the building, the journalist explains that he's reported from the White House for five years as the agent struggles with his lanyard.
One viewer of his video showed their empathy for Acosta's very bad day at the office by adding a fittingly melancholic violin melody to the footage.
"The bad tempered back and forth between CNN's Jim Acosta and Donald Trump was the kind of exchange where it's hard to pick a good guy.
Acosta attempted to lecture Trump about his views on immigration while hogging the mic, and Trump called Acosta " rude and terrible ". Just standard stuff. Like a couple of toddlers interacting, only one has nuclear weapons and the other has a primetime TV audience."
Really? One was a toddler, the other was an adult. I watched it live. Pretty easy to figure out if you watched the whole interview that Trump was trying to dial down the tone and some in the media are very keen to not let that happen. How dare he seem Presidential? The general feel for me was Trump trying to extend an olive branch to get things done when the Dems take the House. Of course, all I read about is him declaring war if they don't want to negotiate. It's a bit of a misrepresentation.
Jim is just a jerk. I thought Trump handled it well, asking him over and over to turn over the mic and the guy is just a bully. He really was rude. Trump stood up to him. That's it. Case closed. If anything, it made Trump look good.
As for the nuclear weapons comment... Really? It has everything to do with a reporter going haywire and being totally unprofessional and nothing to do with nukes, at all! Also, last I checked, DT doesn't keep nukes in his personal possession, AND he can't just launch them at CNN. Good grief.