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According to reports from Fox News, Jim Acosta, CNN chief White House Correspondent interrupted Dr. Deborah Birx during the coronavirus briefing to criticize Trump.
“We can talk about why didn’t Italy do something or Spain do something or Germany do something, or we can really say right now — we all can do something,” Dr. Birx explained. “We can do the social distancing and all of the pieces that we know is starting to work around the globe in country after country. And then when we get through all of this, we can ask the questions about could we have done some piece of this better as a global community.” Dr. Birx said.
“I will remind you that on February 3rd, the head of the WHO said there was no reason to ever do a travel ban,” Dr. Birx continued. “It wasn’t until January 14th that we knew that there was human-to-human transmission,” she continued.
Acosta interrupted, “Dr. Birx, the president was saying this was going to go away,” Acosta said. “It’s April.”
Trump defended his claims, “It is going to go away,” President Trump fired back. “I said it was going away and it is going away.”
Jim Acosta's interruption of Dr. Birx is an example of how CNN's echo-journalism model is destroying the media's credibility. Every question from Acosta is an effort to score points rather than elicit information. It is a press pandemic that continues to rage without relief.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) April 3, 2020
Dear Diary:
While I’m no expert, I tried #Mansplaining to an expert medical expert named Dr. Birx.” @Acosta https://t.co/fLuOLOF7LZ— PARIS (@PARISDENNARD) April 3, 2020
.@Acosta just tried to mansplain to Dr. Birx
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) April 3, 2020
Of course Acosta interrupted Birx as she was making an interesting comment about WHO.
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) April 3, 2020
George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley said, “Jim Acosta’s interruption of Dr. Birx is an example of how CNN’s echo-journalism model is destroying the media’s credibility,”
“Every question from Acosta is an effort to score points rather than elicit information. It is a press pandemic that continues to rage without relief.”
More from Fox News:
CNN did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
Acosta has made a name for himself in the Trump era for his hostile exchanges with the president.
— Advertisement — However, he is even criticized among his White House press corps colleagues. In his new book, ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl knocked his CNN counterpart, accusing him of “playing into the explicit Trump strategy of portraying the press as the opposition party.”
“The surest way to undermine the credibility of the White House press corps is to behave like the political opposition,” Karl wrote. “Don’t give speeches from the White House briefing room.”
