Conway calls CNN’s Acosta a ‘smartass’ during immigration exchange
White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway called CNN’s Jim Acosta a “smartass” during a heated exchange over immigration.
Acosta asked Conway on the North Lawn driveway whether she could “promise the president will tell the truth tonight” during a primetime address on his demands for a border wall.
“Yes, Jim. And will you promise that you will?“ Conway asked in response.
{mosads}“I will, absolutely. I’m not the one with the alternative-facts problem like you do,” Acosta replied, referencing a quote from Conway from 2017.
When Acosta challenged Conway again about whether Trump’s speech could pass a fact check, the White House aide replied, “let me go back to your case because you’re such a smartass most of the time and I know you want this to go viral.”
She then defended her response to the White House’s use of a misleading claim that 4,000 known or suspected terrorists were caught last year trying to cross the border to argue for a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
Only 12 of those were caught at the southern border between October 2017 and 2018, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
“I explained it many times. And don’t you put it back in my face for all the corrections your that network has issued,” she said.
Conway said earlier Tuesday that White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made an “unfortunate misstatement” when she made the claim during a Sunday show appearance.
Tuesday’s dust-up is the latest clash between the CNN correspondent and the White House, which pulled his press credentials in November after President Trump attempted to cut him off from asking more questions during a news conference.
The White House eventually restored the pass after being sued by CNN.
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