CNN White House reporter Jim Acosta has made a name for himself badgering President Trump. Not at all concerned about bias, Acosta even wrote a book about the president titled “The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America.”
“Neutrality for the sake of neutrality doesn’t serve us in the age of Trump,” he wrote in the book.
But Acosta clearly doesn’t have a problem with neutrality. He’s reveling in Trump’s reported loss in the 2020 presidential election (several news agencies have called the race for Democrat Joe Biden, although the Trump campaign has filed numerous lawsuits contesting the outcome in several key battleground states).
Appearing Friday on “AC360” with host Anderson Cooper, Acosta discussed Trump’s use of social media in which the president disputes election results.
“He’s been tweeting this evening, talking about how he won this state and that state,” said. “We have to pay attention to those tweets now, Anderson, because he’s the president, but after January 20th, he just goes back to being another crackpot on the internet.”
Acosta also appeared on Wolf Blitzer’s CNN show, where he said Trump is “pretending he still has a chance to win the 2020 election, but that’s not true.”
“Just a short while ago in the Rose Garden, the president took no questions and appeared to come out in front of the cameras to sooth his damaged ego,” he said. “He suggested there was a way he could somehow remain an office after January, when that’s not the case and even officials in the Trump administration say, Mr. Trump’s bogus conspiracy theories are simply full of lies. And while the president is full of bluster in front of the cameras, his close allies are telling a different story — that he is starting to come around to a reality that he has lost.”
In a taped report, Acosta then says: “Welcome to the White House twilight zone, where President Trump is still publicly clinging to an alternate reality, the one where he can still win the 2020 election… But in the real world it’s a different story.”
CNN's Jim Acosta: After January 20th, Trump 'Just Goes Back to Being Another Crackpot on the Internet' https://t.co/uDLONr3TaY
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) November 14, 2020
The two have battled from the beginning. In May 2016, then-candidate Trump interrupted a peacocking Acosta and said, “Excuse me, excuse me, I’ve watched you on TV. You’re a real beauty.”
In November 2018, Acosta again made headlines when he refused to relinquish a microphone during a White House press conference, prompting top Trump officials to rescind his press credential. A furious Trump, pointing at Acosta, said: “I tell you what: CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person.”
Then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called Acosta’s behavior during the press conference “absolutely unacceptable.”
Acosta, though, claimed Trump was trying to “silence” the media. “The president and his team, not to mention some of his supporters, have attempted to silence the press in ways we have never seen before. As just about everybody has seen, I have witnessed this first hand. As difficult as that challenge may be for the free press in America, we must continue to do our jobs and report the news. The truth is worth the fight,” he said then.
Related: CNN’s Jim Acosta Calls Trump’s America ‘Vicious’: ‘I Throw My Beer Cans At The TV’