President Donald Trump mocked CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta on Saturday during a G-20 press conference in Osaka, Japan, which elicited laughter from the audience.
“And what is it with your coziness with some of these dictators and autocrats at these summits?” Acosta asked. “With Mohammad Bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, when you were asked about the case of Jamal Khashoggi, you did not respond to that question in front of the Saudi Crown Prince.”
“I don’t know that anybody asked me,” Trump responded.
“Were you afraid of offending him on that subject?” Acosta asked.
“No, not at all,” Trump responded. “I don’t really care about offending people. I sort of thought you’d know that.”
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After briefly talking about Acosta’s book, Trump said while pointing at the other journalists in the room: “I get along with everybody — except you people, actually.”
“Mr. President, on the case of Jamal Khashoggi, you have a lot of journalists in this room who object to what appears to be the Saudi government’s complicity and perhaps orchestration of the assassination and dismembering of a journalist,” Acosta pressed. “And do you agree that it is despicable for a government to kill a journalist in that fashion?”
“Yes, I do,” Trump responded. “I think it’s horrible. Or anybody else, by the way. But I think it’s horrible. And, if you look, and look into Saudi Arabia and you see what’s happening, 13 people or so have been prosecuted. Others are being prosecuted. They’ve taken it very, very seriously, and they will continue to. And I’ve let everybody know I’m not — I’m very unhappy about that whole event.”