This is a trying time for America, but more importantly, for journalists trying to cover King Joffrey Baratheon of the House of White.
First off, a Trump press conference is always a disaster, but a day after the midterm elections, the president gave a rare performance, including engaging in a full insult-filled shoutfest with CNN reporter Jim Acosta and telling veteran reporter Yamiche Alcindor that her very valid question about the president calling himself a nationalist, which emboldened white nationalists, was “racist.”
This is not a rare occurrence in this demagoguery thinly veiled as a presidency; it’s actually par for the course. The president of the United States is trash and what happened during today’s press conference is sadly where we are as a country. When the president wasn’t dancing on the graves of Republicans who didn’t fully endorse his racist and xenophobic presidency, he was fielding questions from reporters.
The president openly hates CNN and everyone that works there, including the nighttime custodial staff. So when Acosta was called on to ask a question, it was a moment.
When Acosta asked why the president continuously characterizes the caravan of Central American migrants as an invasion when they are months away, the president stated with all of the huffiness of a seven-year-old: “You should let me run the country. You run CNN,” Rolling Stone reports.
Acosta tried to ask Trump an additional question and Trump went apeshit.
“CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them,” Trump said. “You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN. You’re a very rude person. The way you treat [Press Secretary] Sarah Huckabee [Sanders] is horrible. The way you treat other people is horrible.”
This Acosta should really find offensive given that Trump is arguably the worst person in the world. It’s kind of like Satan saying that your breath is hot. The punk-ass president continued to berate Acosta and when the veteran journalist tried to defend himself, the president got all, “But I’m the president and you’re not listening to me!” on him and walked away from the podium.
Finally, things cooled and the president continued fielding questions. Also, because Trump can’t stop being Trump, he had some more ammunition left during his press conference, which he totally made about him; he continuously interrupted reporters who were unable to ask their questions and then abruptly told them to sit down.
PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor, who is black, asked the president about comments he made late last month during a political rally in which he called himself a nationalist. Alcindor wondered if the president had considered that his words matter and that calling himself such emboldened white nationalists across the country.
“That’s such a racist question,” Trump said. “I don’t believe that,” ABC 15 reports.
Which is the political equivalent of: “I’m not crying, you’re crying.”
Trump then did what he always does, which is to note that his numbers with African Americans have quadrupled-billioned since taking office and that he can’t be a white nationalist because he’s friends with Jim Brown and Yeezy.
“I love our country,” Trump added. “You have nationalists, you have globalists. I also love the world. I would love to help the world, but we have to straighten out our country first. But to say, that, what you said, is so insulting to me. It’s a very terrible thing you said.”
Trump forgot to add: “I’m just fucking with you. Of course I’m a white nationalist. Duh.”