Watch as Secret Service Tell Cocky Jim Acosta He's Not Getting in
It isn’t too often that someone in the White House media corps tries to pull a “do you know who I am?” on anyone, much less the Secret Service.
There’s a reason for this: Unlike athletes and singers and other such people who use the “do you know who I am?” card, most people don’t know who White House press correspondents are. Dan Rather was arguably the most famous, but this was in the days before he was the host of the “CBS Evening News.”
In other words, there aren’t too many people who can pull that ugly get-out-of-jail-free card in the White House briefing room.
But if someone was going to, it was going to be Jim Acosta. And of course he did, because … well, he’s Jim Acosta.
The whole thing was caught on video and has become a slight sensation on Twitter, at least for those of us who know who CNN’s bratty White House media correspondent is.
It’s difficult to tell from the beginning of the video what the issue was, but from what I can make out, it appears Acosta wasn’t wearing a security lanyard of some sort.
The Secret Service agent tried to explain to him that, yes, the rules to apply to him, too. But Jimbo wasn’t having it.
“I’ve been here five years and nobody’s …” Acosta said before trailing off.
The Secret Service agent responded that she was sorry, but she had not been there for five years, and all Acosta could do was thank her and walk away.
The original poster of the video characterized Acosta’s reaction as a “meltdown.” In all fairness, I wouldn’t go that far, but once you have to pull out any variation on the “do you know who I am?” card, well …
Acosta, for those of you who may have forgotten, is the same guy who actually decided to take to Twitter to complain that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders hadn’t taken a question from him at three (three!) news conferences after making a scene about it in the media briefing.
Here was that petulance on display then:
Third press briefing in a row that @PressSec did not take a question from CNN. #courage
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) March 5, 2018
Courage, indeed. And now he’s joined celebrities like Mike Tyson, David Hasselhoff, Reese Witherspoon, Margaret Cho and Shia LaBeouf, among others, as users of some variation of the excuse “do you know who I am?”
Now, granted, most of this cohort made these statements after quite a few adult beverages. I don’t know Mr. Acosta’s private habits, but he seemed sober.
Then again, I don’t know whether that makes this better or worse.
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