CNN’s senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta posted a video late Wednesday night that showed supporters of President Donald Trump screaming at him. He said the behavior “isn’t normal” in politics.
In the clip, Trump supporters in Arizona scream at Acosta while he puts on his face mask. Most of them are not wearing masks.
“This happens at just about every Trump rally. I’ve covered five presidential campaigns… long enough to know this isn’t normal. Sometimes I’ll scan the crowd, not for the folks who are chanting but for the people who look back at me silently, letting me know they know it’s wrong,” he wrote.
Wednesday night, Trump posted his own rally video from Arizona in which he said he is not running against Democratic nominee Joe Biden so much as he’s running against “the left-wing media.”
Trump’s attacks — and his supporters’ attacks — on the media are not new. He called CNN “fake news” again earlier on Wednesday, too, before Acosta posted his video demonstrating what that sentiment looks like in action.
The anti-media jeering hasn’t changed in five years, but other things have. Acosta has reported on Trump since the beginning, as his tweet said, and has seen the changes within the administration. Earlier this summer, he observed that the White House had shed so many staffers and officials that it was “down to Kool-Aid drinkers and next of kin.”
This happens at just about every Trump rally. I’ve covered five presidential campaigns… long enough to know this isn’t normal. Sometimes I’ll scan the crowd, not for the folks who are chanting but for the people who look back at me silently, letting me know they know it’s wrong pic.twitter.com/1U2nPi5PQR
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 29, 2020