Acosta was wrong and so was Trump

“I tell you what. CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person.” — President Donald Trump to CNN reporter Jim Acosta

That was quite a show CNN’s Jim Acosta and President Donald Trump put on at the presidential news conference held the day after the midterm elections.

You may have seen it on a TV or digital screen. It reminded me of a gunfight in an old Western movie. Except Acosta and Trump shot words, not bullets, and neither of them was a hero.

In my opinion, Acosta was wrong and so was Trump.

Here’s how their clash played out. The quotes are from a cnn.com transcript.

Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, was one of the first reporters Trump called on.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Acosta said. “I want to challenge you on one of the statements that you made in the tail end of the campaign.” “Here we go,” Trump said.

Acosta brought up the movement of Central American migrants through Mexico toward the U.S. border.

“As you know, Mr. President, the caravan is not an invasion,” Acosta said.

Trump replied, “Thank you for telling me that. I appreciate it.”

The back and forth about the migrants continued until Trump said: “Honestly, I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings would be much better.”

A female White House intern tried to grab the microphone in Acosta’s hand, but he held onto it.

Acosta started to ask a question about the Russia investigation. Trump said, “That’s enough.”

Soon he added: “I tell you what. CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person.”

Trump rambled on about unfair news coverage and snapped at other reporters.

Unfortunately, Acosta and Trump turned what could have been an informative Q & A exchange about immigration into an argument.

Acosta was wrong to tell the president it was incorrect to call the migration an invasion. He should have asked a short question about the U.S. response to the impending arrival of the migrants.

(Do high-profile reporters at presidential news conferences ever ask short questions?)

If Acosta was not satisfied with the answer, he could have tried again. But only once.

The president was wrong to berate the reporter. If he didn’t like the question, he could have responded, “I have no comment.”

(Has Trump ever said that?)

After the news conference, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders announced that Acosta’s White House press pass had been suspended “until further notice.”

The Sanders statement accused Acosta of “placing his hands” on the intern who was reaching for the microphone.

Later the White House sent out a 15-second video segment, also posted by the conspiracy website Infowars. It seems to show that Acosta pushed the intern’s upper arm.

But according to analyses of the segment by news organizations, the video had been altered and exaggerated a glancing contact between Acosta and the intern.

So Sanders was wrong, too.