CNN’s Acosta: Trump owns ‘world record for injecting politics’ into terror attack aftermath

CNN’s Jim Acosta said Wednesday that President Trump “now has the world record for injecting politics into the aftermath of a terror attack” during a report on the Tuesday terrorist attack in New York City that killed eight people after a truck plowed through a bike path near the World Trade Center site.

Acosta’s commentary came during an interview on “CNN Newsroom” with anchor Brooke Baldwin.

“I think President Trump, Brooke, now has the world record for injecting politics into the aftermath of a terror attack,” the network’s senior White House correspondent said. “That is exactly what has happened in the last 12 hours or so as the President has been tweeting about this.”

“And then if you look at the comments he made at the beginning of his Cabinet meeting, in addition to regarding the U.S. justice system as a joke and a laughing stock, he also called for sweeping changes to the nation’s immigration system, saying that we should get rid of this diversity lottery system that has been in place for almost two decades,” Acosta continued.

{mosads}

The suspect in Tuesday’s attack, 29-year-old Sayfullo Saipov, is a native of Uzbekistan who entered the United States in 2010 via a program that provides visas to people from countries with few immigrants here called the diversity visa program.

Trump said Wednesday that he wanted to start the process immediately to terminate that particular visa program.

“I want to immediately work with Congress on the diversity lottery program, on terminating it, getting rid of it. We want people that are going to keep our country safe. We don’t want lotteries where the wrong people are in the lotteries. And guess what, who are the suckers that get those people,” he said.

Acosta addressed the president’s remarks with Baldwin.

“Now the president says he wants to change over to a merit-based immigration system,” Acosta noted. “That is, of course, the same immigration that his policy adviser Stephen Miller was talking about here at the White House a couple of months ago.” 

Miller, a White House senior adviser, and Acosta had a notable debate on immigration during a press briefing back in August.

“What you’re proposing — or what the president is proposing here — does not sound like it’s in keeping with American tradition when it comes to immigration,” Acosta said to Miller in reference to an immigration proposal Trump had endorsed on Aug. 2.

Acosta responded by citing a passage on the Statue of the Liberty.

“The Statue of Liberty says, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ It doesn’t say anything about speaking English, or being … a computer programmer. Aren’t you trying to change what it means to be an immigrant coming into this country if you’re telling them they have to speak English? Can’t people learn how to speak English when they get here?” he asked Miller.

Miller responded by scolding the reporter.

“Well first of all, right now, it’s a requirement that to be naturalized, you have to speak English. So the notion that speaking English wouldn’t be part of our immigration system would be very ahistorical,” Miller said.

“This whole notion … that they have to learn English before they get to the United States, are we just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?” Acosta asked.

“I am shocked at your statement that you think that only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English,” Miller said. “It reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree.”

Acosta often spars with White House officials and once famously did with the president in January after Trump called Acosta and CNN “fake news.”