CNN’s Jim Acosta Rips Trump’s Lack of Empathy Over Massive Covid Death Wave: ‘This is a Nation Without a President’

CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta laid into President Donald Trump for his failure to address or show empathy for the suffering amid record numbers of coronavirus deaths.

On Thursday night’s edition of AC360. Acosta roasted Trump on a variety of issues as he delivered a live update to fill-in host John Berman — but made his most pointed remark about Trump’s response to the tsunami of Covid deaths wracking the country.

Berman began by noting “Jim, we haven’t seen the president today, and even on Twitter, his preferred method of communication, he only mentioned the vaccine in a tweet about the stock market and stimulus talks,” and asked, “do we know what the president actually did today?”

“Well John, you know how it is with short-timers, they take that long lunch, they cut out of work early,” Acosta said, and quipped “This is the president who has turned executive time into an art form. And he did that today.”

He noted Trump avoided cameras during a bill signing because “He obviously doesn’t want to take questions about how he lost the election and his bogus election challenges.”

“He spoke with King Salman of Saudi Arabia over the phone at one point, and he was apparently briefed on the suspected Russian cyber hacking of the US government, although the president has not come out and weighed in and condemned Vladimir Putin and the Russians for being behind that attack.”

Acosta went on to tell Berman that “In many ways, this is a nation without a president today. Because the president did not use the bully pulpit to show any kind of sympathy for the thousands of people who lost their lives from the coronavirus, and who are going to continue to lose their lives from the coronavirus from here on forward.”

He also slammed Trump for his failure to publicly receive the COVID-19 vaccine, telling Berman that “In a way, Vice President Pence has taken on the role of the president from a bully pulpit perspective” by scheduling a public immunization to increase confidence in the vaccine.

Noting that the White House has said Trump will get vaccinated when his medical team says it’s okay to do so, Acosta said  that Trump “is not putting himself in a position where we can ask him the question,” and that if Trump “gets out there and says he will take the coronavirus vaccine, that will go a long way in instilling confidence in millions of his supporters that it is okay to be vaccinated.”

“He’s just not doing that at this point, just in the same way he is not leading on Russia, John, it has just been one of those confounding things that we have seen throughout this presidency, one of the through lines of this presidency, how he has been at times anti-science and pro-Russia,” Acosta said.

Watch the clip above via CNN.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!