Wolf Blitzer Calls Out Trump’s Silence Over Capitol Insurrection: ‘If He Had the Guts’ He Could Just Hold White House Press Briefing
CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer called out President Donald Trump for his ongoing silence about the Capitol insurrection and his unwillingness to hold a White House press briefing to address the growing calls for his removal from office.
In the wake of the near-universal lockdown of Trump’s social media accounts, CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta reported the White House was now struggling to get its message out. Trump has, of course, obliterated the traditional structure of having an institutional White House voice that can reliably speak for him, and, increasingly, his rambling personal statements and vengeful social media posts had become the primary vector for the administration’s communications with the public.
Speaking with Blitzer on Monday evening, Acosta explained that Trump is looking to engage in a celebratory farewell tour in his final days in the White House. But he noted that the White House’s typical rollout plan for such a campaign is suffering without the twin bullhorns of Trump’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.
“We heard talk earlier today that the president might put out some kind of video this evening, talking about what he sees as his accomplishments here at the White House as he closes out his time in office,” Acosta explained. “One thing we are hearing from White House officials, they’re a bit dumbfounded how to get the president’s messages out to the American people. They have been using web videos in recent days, but they obviously can’t do that. With the president’s social media accounts handicapped at the moment. In the meantime, Wolf, the president could walk in the briefing room, take questions from reporters. But seems to be in no mood to do that.”
“If he had the guts, he could speak to the American public, say whatever he wanted,” Blitzer responded, not-so-subtly implying Trump was too cowardly to face the media. Just hours before, Trump campaign spokesperson Hogan Gidley had tried to beat back reporting that it had been “emasculating” for his boss to have his Twitter account stripped away and, instead, Gidley tried to claim Trump was the “most masculine person” ever to be president.
“Reporters would then ask him questions and see if he wanted to answer the questions,” Blitzer noted. “That’s normally what a President of the United States would do, but clearly he doesn’t want to do that, right?”
“We’re not in a normal world, Wolf,” Acosta replied. “The president has been in hiding for weeks. He doesn’t want to take those questions. He knows what questions we’re going to ask. We’ll ask about inciting that mob, inciting that insurrection last week. He doesn’t want to talk about that.”
“He certainly doesn’t,” Blitzer reiterated.
Watch the video above, via CNN.
