Watch: CNN's Lemon, Acosta Pat Themselves on Back as 'Defenders of the People'
CNN host Don Lemon and the network’s chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, used a segment on CNN this week as an attempt to convince viewers that the network was not just working against the Trump and administration.
Instead, Acosta said, the journalists serve as the “defenders of the people.”
“We are defenders of the people, and we want to defend the people because we are devoted to the people,” Jim Acosta said. pic.twitter.com/P2nmhN9dLw
— Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) June 12, 2019
Acosta was on “CNN Tonight” on Tuesday to discuss his book, “The Enemy of the People.”
He told Lemon: “We are the defenders of the people and we want to defend the people because we are devoted to the people.”
Lemon slammed critics of the network for thinking that “CNN hates Trump and CNN loves the Democrats.”
The CNN host brought up an example from Tuesday, saying he watched an interaction between CNN’s congressional correspondent Manu Raju and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Lemon said Pelosi “clearly” didn’t want to answer Raju’s questions and praised him for persisting in asking the speaker “tough questions.”
“If anyone, Democrat or Republican, if you hold a position of power, we, the journalists at CNN, are going to question you about it whether you like it or not,” Lemon said.
Acosta jumped in and said, “That’s right.”
“We’re here to hold their feet to the fire and just because we are pro-truth does not mean that we are anti-Trump,” he said.
Acosta added, “We are not the enemy of the people. We are the defenders of the people and we want to defend the people because we are devoted to the people.”
This was more than likely not just a reference to his book, but also to a tweet by President Donald Trump earlier in the week that slammed the “failing” New York Times and the “ratings challenged” CNN.
“They are truly The Enemy of the People,” Trump said.
…..there is not, we can always go back to our previous, very profitable, position of Tariffs – But I don’t believe that will be necessary. The Failing @nytimes, & ratings challenged @CNN, will do anything possible to see our Country fail! They are truly The Enemy of the People!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 9, 2019
Acosta added that it wasn’t journalists’ job to “spin things” but rather to “give the people reliable, accurate information on a daily basis, that’s why we come into work every day.”
Trump has long been an outspoken critic of CNN, often calling the network “fake news.”
In 2017, the president posted a doctored video of him wrestling “CNN” to the ground.
#FraudNewsCNN #FNN pic.twitter.com/WYUnHjjUjg
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2017
The same year, as The New York Times reported, he referred to CNN as “garbage journalism.”
He added, “The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House. But I’m president, and they’re not.”
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