CNN chief White House correspondent and resident quack Jim Acosta predictably inserted himself into Wednesday’s press briefing, taking up over four minutes lamenting about Monday night’s events in D.C.’s Lafayette Park and refusing to denounce violence against police officers.
And just as predictably, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany made him look like a fool, repeatedly saying that police “have the right to defend themselves” and that Acosta should respect the tough jobs they do seeing as how law enforcement have been “defending and protecting you as you come into this building each and every day, Jim.”
Acosta led off not with a question, but a hot take asserting that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “likely would not have approved what took place Monday evening in front of the White House, as you probably know.”
“If the White House, the President, and his team had to do it again, would you have gassed and pummeled protesters to clear the park so the President could have a photo op,” he added.
McEnany got one sentence out and then Acosta proceeded to filibuster instead of ask questions and have a real exchange. Thankfully, McEnany put a stop to it and laid out the timeline and rationale for clearing Lafayette Park:
MCENANY: So, let me first address no tear gas was used and no rubber bullets were used.
ACOSTA: Chemical agents were used.
MCENANY: So, again, no tear gas was used and no rubber bullets were used. Let me —
ACOSTA: Why are you making that distinction? Chemical agents were used.
MCENANY: — let me — let me back up and —
ACOSTA: We talked to an Episcopal priest who said she was gassed. Others say they were tear gassed in that area.
MCENANY: Well, no one was tear gassed. Let me make that clear. That's been confirmed by DOD and Park Services as well.
ACOSTA: But chemical agents were used.
MCENANY: So let me go back and address what happened cause there's been a lot of misreporting. First, I would note that these protests that were going on in the morning, A.G. Barr had determined that we needed to expand the perimeter by a block on each side. He was surprised, A.G. Barr, when he arrived at the White House to see that that perimeter had not been moved, so he said we needed to get going with moving that perimeter. He talked to the officers that out there. That was late afternoon, so that decision was made in the morning. The protesters were told three times over loud speaker that they needed to move and what happened was it grew unruly. There were projectiles being thrown at officers, frozen water bottles were being thrown at officers, various projectiles and the officers had no choice than in that moment but to acted and make sure that they were safe and the perimeter was pushed back because, as we all know, a church was burning in that very area the night before, so the appropriate action was taken. Expand
Acosta followed up with the lame excuse that “the church wasn’t burning” on Monday, so there was no reason to clear the area. McEnany countered that Barr had already said that the perimeter should be extended “so the church would no longer be in harm’s way” and, in similar fashion, “it's absolutely uncalled for to throw bricks, absolutely uncalled for to throw water bottles that are frozen at police officers.”
Acosta wouldn’t acknowledge that point and instead downplayed it because “the vast majority of those protesters were doing so peacefully and that many of them did not hear those warnings and were simply just pushed out of the way, just forced — pummeled out of the way by their fellow Americans, police officers.”
With McEnany reminding Acosta of the right of police officers to not be physically harmed and...
