An embarrassment to village idiots

In a terrific Washington Times column Charles Hurt calls CNN’s Jim Acosta “An embarrassment to village idiots.” Hurt draws on President Trump’s exchange with Acosta at the G20 summit last week. Ryan Saavedra quotes the exchange at somewhat greater length and features the video highlight below:

“[W]hat 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.”

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.”

Here is the video highlight via Twitter.

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