Jim Acosta Calls Out Trump For Attacking CNN As ‘Fake News’ When He Used Pecker To Put Out Literal Fake News

CNN anchor Jim Acosta called out former President Donald Trump for attacking CNN as “fake news” since just after the 2016 campaign, as testimony now reveals he was having then-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker put out literal fake news about his rivals.

Acosta kicked off Friday’s edition of CNN’s branded coverage of the Stormy Daniels hush money-election interference trial by going right at Trump over the attacks that began with an infamous exchange at a January 2017 press conference. Co-anchor Kaitlan Collins pointed ou the Pecker relationship continued “into the White House”:

JIM ACOSTA: All right. It’s the top of the hour and court is now in session for another day of Donald Trump’s hush money trial. Good morning and welcome back to CNN’s special live coverage. I’m Jim Acosta.

At this moment, the jury is hearing testimony from former tabloid executive David Pecker, a man who says he still considers Donald Trump a friend despite spending the week laying out their alleged scheme to bury negative stories on Trump and illegally influence the 2016 election.

Kaitlin Collins, a lot going on inside the courtroom right now. And I have to say, I mean, you know, you and I, Kristen as well, Jamie, all of us, we all remember the 2016 campaign. And for all of this talk of fake news, I mean, David Pecker is really laying out the scheme to not only kill negative stories but pump out fake news beneficial to Donald Trump.

KAITLAN COLLINS: Yes, and something that went from the campaign, but also into the White House, where he was on the phone with, with White House officials. And right now what’s happening, just for an update for everyone, is David Pecker is back on the stand, he’s being cross-examined by Trump’s attorneys, and they are obviously trying to undermine everything that prosecutors laid out, this idea that there was a conspiracy hatched between Donald Trump and David Pecker to try to hurt his Republican rivals leading up to the 2016 campaign. It’s also to go after Hillary and Bill Clinton.

And so the way that they’re doing it right now is they’re questioning him about Ben Carson and stories that they had that they were publishing, implying that he had botched surgeries as a doctor. And what they’re basically trying to say is this was something that was already out there in other outlets. The National Enquirer was just recycling it. So, this isn’t something that was just a Donald Trump and David Pecker plan.

ACOSTA: Oh, it was just out there, yes.

COLLINS: They just asked David Pecker, would you have published this without that conversation in August 2015 with Trump? And David Pecker testified, yes.

So, really, you know, when I was speaking to Trump sources yesterday about what their plan is with this cross-examination, what their goal is, they really just want to undermine the idea that this is a conspiracy to get Donald Trump elected, that really it was just the National Enquirer doing what the National Enquirer does.

ACOSTA: Yes. Jim, I mean, we haven’t gone to you yet. What, I mean, your reaction to what we’ve been witnessing thus far.

JIM SCHULTZ: So, right. I think it’s all about dirtying up the National Enquirer, right, and the industry in general, this — they called it checkbook journalism, I think, yesterday. They used the word standard operating procedure time and time again.

ACOSTA: And, Jim, we should note this right here on the side of the screen, just to keep giving our audience these excerpts, Bove confirms with Pecker that other outlets covered malpractice claims against Ben Carson in May of 2015. It sounds as though what — and you can see some of the headlines there on screen there, Ted Cruz shamed by porn star, bungling surgeon Ben Carson left sponge in patient’s brain.

I mean, you know, first of all, take all of these headlines with a grain of salt, as we do with the National Enquirer. But it sounds like what the defense is trying to do is say, hey, wait a minute, all of those stuff, sort of, kind of floating out there anyway.

SCHULTZ: It’s part of politics, it’s part of celebrity culture. It’s all — you know, that that’s — the argument is that that is — this is all part of kind of the, the dirty business of tabloid journalism. And I think you’re going to hear more and more about that. Now they’re moving on the Marco Rubio, right? So, they’re going to go through each one.

And they talk about a little bit about Schwarzenegger, right, celebrity/politician. They’re trying to make analogies here that this is kind of just the way they do business.

Watch above via CNN’s branded coverage of the Stormy Daniels hush money-election interference trial.