CNN reporter Jim Acosta went to a walled portion of the U.S.-Mexico border on Thursday to “prove” there was no border crisis.
Unfortunately, he wound up proving Trump right.
In a video uploaded to Twitter, Acosta pointed out “some of the steel slats that the president’s been talking about”–a large steel border fence that enables Border Patrol to see the other side, but with openings too narrow for humans to fit through.
“As we’re walking along here we’re not saying any kind of imminent danger,” Acosta said, in the video. “There are no migrants trying to rush towards this fence.”
“No sign of the national emergency that the president has been talking about,” he added. “As a matter of fact, it’s pretty tranquil down here.”
Almost immediately, Twitter demolished Acosta for pointing out the obvious: there’s no border crisis where he was… because there’s a gigantic wall on the border.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders chimed in:
When I went with President @realDonaldTrump to the border today I never imagined @Acosta would be there doing our job for us and so clearly explaining why WALLS WORK. Thanks Jim! https://t.co/7wC4rdEsZ2
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) January 10, 2019
Republican strategist Caleb Hull wrote that the video was “one of the biggest self owns ever.”
Jim Acosta just posted one of the biggest self owns ever.
He's walking along the border where there's a wall in place talking about how there's nothing that "resembles a national emergency situation" and "there's no migrants trying to rush."
That's because there's a wall, Jim. https://t.co/qkuWRhxolW
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) January 10, 2019
And even oe of Acosta’s former colleagues, Peter Hamby, was stunned by the idiocy of the video: “I am *shocked* that a glib video, customized for re-tweets and filmed in broad daylight along one of the more secure parts of the RGV by a reporter who parachuted in for the day, did not reveal anything dramatic,” he wrote.
Finally, by the end of Jim Acosta’s no-good-very-bad-day, President Trump himself came to finish him off.
“Dear Diary…” wrote Trump, retweeted Acosta’s original message.
Dear Diary… https://t.co/NAuMaQW6fl
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2019
