CNN’s Acosta repeatedly deflects criticism of Biden in mixed interview with GOP congressman Issa

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Media headlines August 23

In media today, CBS reporter asks White House staff to show Biden the poll on his job approval drop, Bill Maher and Andrew Sullivan tour newsrooms for gave in to the “awakened mobs” and a CNN panel detonated Biden’s “bizarre” message. on Afghanistan

The rank partisanship of CNN presenter Jim Acosta was still evident on Sunday as he confronted a GOP guest over US withdrawal from Afghanistan and lamented years-old “disgusting” remarks by a radio host conservative candidate for governor of California.

Welcoming Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., On his weekend show “Newsroom”, the left-wing presenter framed his questions about the out-of-power Trump administration, shortly after the president Joe Biden answered questions about the American and Afghan evacuation efforts. allies in the midst of a failed troop exodus.

“What’s your response to what President Biden just said a few minutes ago and isn’t former President Trump taking some of the blame in all of this? He made this deal with the Taliban. Of course Biden embraced it, and you and other Republicans on Capitol Hill were applauding that withdrawal from Afghanistan months ago. What do you say now? ”Acosta asked.

“Well, first of all, I would have left Bagram Air Base open. I have never applauded the idea of ​​closing a strategic base more than I would say we should give up the two air bases we have. in South Korea, ”Issa said. “The point is, China is a bigger threat today than it ever was. And just as we keep these two bases and 28,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines in South Korea, 2,500 was not an unreasonable amount to keep. “

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Issa objected to the idea that the withdrawal was indeed Trump’s policy, but Acosta interrupted to say that the Taliban were still so rogue when Trump took office and struck a peace deal with the radical group.

“It’s not like the Taliban suddenly became the Girl Scouts,” Acosta said. “Didn’t President Biden deal with essentially the same people Donald Trump dealt with when he was president?”

“You can’t play it both ways. You can’t say you undo all of Trump’s mistakes and choose this one as the one you blame for Trump because you say you didn’t reverse it,” Issa said.

Acosta has repeatedly cited the Trump administration’s negotiations with the Taliban as he argued with Issa and also criticized his positions on legal immigration.

But Issa again said that the Biden administration, and Acosta by extension, could not continue to complain about the previous one if it agreed with the overall troop withdrawal policy.

“It was a failure of planning or a plan of failure,” Issa said. “Either way, it’s a decision made by this administration, and you can’t blame the last administration. If the last administration was wrong, then, damn it, go ahead and overthrow it. But if you mean that the last administration was right, at least you could run it properly. They clearly had no intention of eliminating the people they are eliminating now. They hadn’t identified any names. “

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Acosta then drastically changed course towards the recall election to potentially replace Gov. Gavin Newsom in Issa’s home state of California. Acosta played a 2017 clip of GOP candidate and conservative radio host Larry Elder, crudely joking that Trump had “kicked more obese women off the couch” with their marches against him than Michelle Obama in eight years.

“Do you think Larry Elder should be the next governor of California? Acosta asked.

“I think Larry Elder, with tens of thousands of hours on the air, entertaining and stimulating, if that’s the case,” Issa began, before Acosta interrupted him to say, “It doesn’t. is not entertaining. It’s disgusting. “

Issa replied that it was widely seen as a joke and “if it’s the best you’ve got, you really don’t have anything on Larry Elder.”

Acosta said there was a lot more information about Elder, but it looked like Issa would rather be governor than Newsom. Issa replied that the majority of the dozens of Republicans participating in the recall race would do a better job than the current governor. Elder has been criticized by some of his fellow GOP challengers for his past rhetoric about women and others.

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“The voters will make a decision on this,” Issa said. “I support the fact that Larry Elder was a thoughtful spokesperson, but he was also a commentator. He said a lot of things. But if in tens of thousands of hours you find a few lines, it doesn’t won’t make people forget that he’s a thoughtful curator who has a lot of great ideas. “

The Acosta team thought about the clip enough to have it posted on their website, although CNN accused Issa of calling his specific remarks about women “entertaining,” when he used the word more. largely about the host in general.

Response to the interview predictably deteriorated along partisan lines. Notably, Acosta retweeted a recap of the exchange from left-wing website RawStory.

Conservative media watchdog NewsBusters called Acosta a “hack journalist” who was worked on by Issa, writer Kristine Marsh jokingly: “There’s a reason you don’t see conservatives very often on CNN. “

Acosta, whose partisan style of reporting on Trump has won praise on CNN but has drawn criticism even from some mainstream colleagues, has focused more on Trump than Biden as a whole since the start of his show, though Biden has served as president for seven months.

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He was removed from his White House post once Biden took office to become the chief “national correspondent”.

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