Acosta Goes After Conservative Reporter... Sarah Sanders Levels Him with Clip from His Past
CNN’s senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta, in his ever-present quest for air time that is usually achieved by battling with President Donald Trump or White House press secretary Sarah Sanders during media briefings, has a tendency to open himself up to counterattacks with his own posturing.
That happened once again on Tuesday, when Acosta had the audacity to chide a conservative-leaning reporter for allegedly offering up a “softball question” to Trump during a joint news conference in the White House Rose Garden with Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro, according to The Daily Caller.
Speaking on CNN following the conclusion of the briefing, Acosta called out a reporter for The Daily Caller, Saagar Enjeti, and said, “And then (Trump) was asked that question by a reporter from The Daily Caller right at the very end. You know … the question was asked in a way that really teed it up like a game of teeball here in the Rose Garden. The president was just sort of served up a softball there when he was asked whether or not the Democrats were advancing a lot of socialist ideas.
Jason Howerton of TheBlaze noted Acosta’s insult of Enjeti for asking a “softball” question of the president, and combined that brief clip with another of Acosta when former President Barack Obama was still in office and the CNN reporter had asked about the then-president’s “best week ever” and how he would spend his accumulated “political capital” on the “hard things” he wanted to deal with in his last few months in office.
Jim Acosta today criticizing @esaagar vs. Jim Acosta when Obama was president pic.twitter.com/ickoM07Joi
— Jason Howerton (@jason_howerton) March 19, 2019
Acosta’s whiny remarks about Enjeti, particularly in light of the softballs he himself lobbed up for Obama to hit, clearly fell under what has become a catch-all for Acosta commentary that have become known as “Dear diary” posts, as they resemble things an angst-ridden and musing teen might write in a daily journal.
Indeed, Sarah Sanders shared Howerton’s post and added a caption that read, “Dear Diary…#BestWeekEver”
Dear Diary…#BestWeekEver https://t.co/WgCpdfAGzP
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) March 20, 2019
Unfortunately for Acosta, the hits didn’t stop there, brutal though they may have been in highlighting his utter hypocrisy.
Even Enjeti and The Daily Caller joined in on the fun in hitting back at CNN’s publicity-seeking microphone hog.
Linking to a different clip of Acosta’s comments aimed at him that day, Enjeti fired back with a subtle shot of his own and tweeted, “I tried something novel. Rather than tell the President what was happening on a particular issue, I asked him to tell me”
I tried something novel. Rather than tell the President what was happening on a particular issue, I asked him to tell me https://t.co/utXU0PfQx7
— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) March 19, 2019
Hilariously, as it turns out, Acosta was in the wrong the whole time, as Enjeti didn’t even ask Trump the question about socialism that Acosta had deemed a “softball,” but rather had asked Brazilian president Bolsanaro about what would happen to U.S.-Brazil relations if one of the Democrats espousing socialism were elected in 2020.
Enjeti’s two questions to Trump were in regard to Democrat threats to pack the Supreme Court and Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes’ lawsuit against Twitter.
Those actual questions of the president were shown in a video put together by The Daily Caller, which hilariously concluded with slow-motion video of Enjeti hitting a ball off a tee in the media outlet’s office to the theme music from “Chariots of Fire.”
While it is, of course, always fun to dunk on liberal reporters like Acosta — especially when they make it so easy sometimes — that is actually beside the point and misses the bigger picture of the vastly different manner in which mainstream media reporters treated Obama as compared to Trump.
Most mainstream media reporters seem to forget the many, many, countless “softball questions” that were “teed up” for Obama to easily knock out of the park.
Most questions Trump receives from those same reporters — Acosta especially — are framed in an argumentative and hostile manner with a clear “gotcha” intention to trap Trump, however he may answer.
Such duplicitous hypocrisy from the media is as disgusting as it is infuriating.
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