CNN’s Jim Acosta Laughs Out Loud At Trump’s Claim His Gaffes Were On Purpose

CNN anchor Jim Acosta laughed out loud at former President Donald Trump’s claim his gaffe about Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi was done on purpose to be “sarcastic.”

Trump told a rally crowd Wednesday that he was being “sarcastic” when he confused Haley with Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi because “they both stink”:

So it’s very hard to be sarcastic. When I interpose, because I’m not a Nikki fan and I’m not a Pelosi fan. And when I purposely interposed names, they said he didn’t know Pelosi from Nikki from tricky. Nikki. Tricky, Dickie.

“He didn’t know,” I interpose and they make a big deal out of it. I said “No, no, I think they both stink, they have something in common. They both say.”

On Thursday afternoon’s edition of CNN’s Inside Politics, Acosta played Trump’s remarks, then laughed out loud as he asked his panel if anyone — “even among his supporters” — believes Trump’s explanation:

JIM ACOSTA: (laughs) Yeah. Okay. He — okay tricky Ni- all right. Does anybody believe that he he mixed up those names on purpose? I mean, even among his supporters?

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON: Right, I mean, listen, listen, his supporters believe 99.9% of what he tells them to believe. So yes, I think they —

JIM ACOSTA: It’s astonishing! They would even believe this? (laughs)

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON: I think they probably believe it. But this is, what this is what Trump does all the time, right? “Oh, I was just joking.” I think he’s trying to sort of soft-pedal some of the things that he said about NATO and Russia as well, because he says something and then he gets blowback for from it. And then he’s like, “Oh, the press is taking me too seriously. And I was just being sarcastic.”

That’s also the first time I heard him use the word “interpose” as well.

…

JIM ACOSTA: You look at the coverage of who gets covered more for these types of things, Biden gets covered a lot more for this than Trump, and —

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON: Hopefully that changes.

JIM ACOSTA: But going back to this, “I was being sarcastic when I was talking, when I mix them up” — I mean, I’m old enough to remember when they blamed it on sarcasm when he said, “Russia, if you’re listening, please hack into Hillary Clinton’s emails.”

They blamed that on him joking around and being sarcastic — wasn’t true. That isn’t true now. This isn’t true when he said this about Pelosi and Nikki Haley.

Watch above via CNN’s Inside Politics.