CNN White House correspondent and professional provocateur Jim Acosta appeared to gloat over President Donald Trump not being able to secure a deal with North Korea on Thursday during a summit in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Acosta’s remarks came after negotiations between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un ended hours before they were scheduled to because Kim “demanded that the U.S. lift all economic sanctions on North Korea without first agreeing to any kind of serious commitment to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula,” The Daily Wire reported.
Following the abrupt end to the summit, Acosta appeared on CNN where he gloated over the outcome.
“So it’s strike one in Singapore, he didn’t get a deal from Kim Jong-un,” Acosta said in a segment flagged by NewsBusters’ Curtis Houck. “Now, it’s strike two in Hanoi. Once again, no deal to denuclearize North Korea, something that he has staked a lot of his legacy, a lot of his presidency on …”
“Humbled in Washington, humbled here in Hanoi, heading back to Washington empty-handed,” Acosta later added. “The president staked a lot of his presidency on something that is just much more difficult than reality TV. This is not something that can be wrapped up in a season of ‘The Apprentice.'”
WATCH:
Acosta later appeared to be somewhat agitated after he and CNN were not called on during a post-summit news conference.
Acosta falsely claimed that Trump steered away from calling on White House reporters for questions, saying: “He didn’t even know who he was calling on. He was calling on reporters from Russian state media, Chinese state media, Sean Hannity from FOX.”
According to NewsBusters’ Curtis Houck, the president called on reporters from ABC, Bloomberg, CBS, Fox News, NPR, The Washington Post, and The New York Times — with Times’ reporter David Sanger being the only non-White House reporter out of the bunch.
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Acosta continued to express his obvious annoyance over the fact that he was not called on during the press conference in a series of tweets.
“Trump largely steered clear of WH press corps.. which helped him avoid the Cohen questions,” Acosta tweeted, adding: “Russian state media got a question. China state media got a question. Hannity got a question.”
Full transcript of Acosta on CNN before the post-summit news conference provided via NewsBusters:
JIM ACOSTA: I mean, this thing fell apart very quickly over the course of the afternoon here in Hanoi. We just got a statement from Sarah Sanders, the White House Press Secretary, in the last several minutes and it basically sums it up in a couple of short sentences. Actually, just one sentence is: “No agreement was reached at this time, but the respective teams look forward to meeting in the future.” That’s the statement coming from Sarah Sanders as to how these talks broke down between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. As you were mentioning just a few moments ago, Christiane, there were — there were some promising moments leading up to what happened this afternoon. The President was making some comments that, I guess, were designed at wooing the North Korean dictator, having some kind of agreement at the conclusion of this summit, but as you said, they — they broke off the talks earlier this afternoon, decided not to have a signing statement, decided not to have a bilateral lunch and so, the president moved up his press conference by two hours. And then I saw administration officials as we entered this room, scrambling to hang up the signs in this room just to get this room ready for the President to walk out and talk to reporters.
And so presumably, he’ll lay out exactly what went wrong behind the scenes. He was starting to tee this up, as you mentioned, earlier on in these talks when he was telling reporters, well, I’m not interested in achieving something quickly. I want to have the right deal at the right time. And it appears that’s the best the President could hope for at this point, so it’s strike one in Singapore, he didn’t get a deal from Kim Jong-un. Now, it’s strike two in Hanoi. Once again, no deal to denuclearize North Korea, something that he has staked a lot of his legacy, a lot of his presidency on and, Jim and Christiane, in the backdrop of all of this is what happened back in Washington up on Capitol Hill at the House Oversight Committee when the President’s former fixer really just blasted away at his former boss, accusing him of being a liar and a cheat a criminal, basically and so on in what was a bombshell hearing up on Capitol Hill. The president presumably will be asked about that as well. He’s been steering clear of that conversation here in Hanoi. He has not tweeted about it in the aftermath of Michael Cohen’s testimony and so this will be the first comments coming from the President about all of this. I find that just to be kind of remarkable, that the President was able to hold his Twitter to a bare minimum here in Hanoi. That is something we don’t see very often from the President, but he kept his powder dry, presumably we’re going to hear the President weigh in on all of that as well, So, it all up, Jim and Christiane, a very rough and rocky 24 hours for the President. Humbled in Washington, humbled here in Hanoi, heading back to Washington empty-handed.
(….)
2:05 a.m. Eastern
ACOSTA: I think it really boils down to Kim Jong-un’s nuclear weapons program. They’ve been very resistant, as you know, Christiane, on the North Korean end to offer a full accounting of their weapons program. If that is the case, they are certainly very resistant to denuclearizing altogether, the North Koreans would obviously like to see the U.S. pull its troops out of the Korean peninsula. That’s not about to happen. And there was talk heading into this summit that they were hoping to sign some sort of agreement to end the Korean war, we’re not even seeing that and, honestly, that would have been a difficult thing to sell to the public and leaders around the world as well. Quite honestly, you can’t really declare an end to the Korean War if Kim Jong-un is not going to fully denuclearize, and if the U.S. is not going to pull all of its troops or a majority of its troops out of the Korean Peninsula.
And so, I think that when we assess all of this in the hours and days and weeks ahead, I think what’s going to become clear, Jim and Christiane, is that the president staked a lot of his presidency on something that is just much more difficult than reality TV. This is not something that can be wrapped up in a season of The Apprentice and the President made some very strong statements about his affection for this North Korean dictator earlier on in this summit. He talked about having a very special relationship with North Korea and Kim Jong-un showing off the economic boom that has taken place in Vietnam, as perhaps a road map for the North Koreans economically if they were to come back into the community of nations. But at the end of the day, that — that it doesn’t seem to be enough for Kim Jong-un to put, really, his entire regime on the line, to take that kind of gamble with the President. It seems, at this point, he is just not ready to do that.