Acosta Clashes With Trump’s Former DHS Chief Over Election Fraud Claims: ‘Sounds Like You’ve Watched One Too Many Conspiracy Films’

CNN’s Jim Acosta clashed with Chad Wolf, who served as former President Donald Trump’s Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, over the ex-president’s comments about the 2020 election.

The contentious interview aired on Sunday’s episode of CNN Newsroom, with Acosta asking Wolf point blank if he thought there had been fraud in the 2020 election.

“I think there’s a number of election irregularities, illegalities, and fraud,” Wolf replied. “That’s been widely reported on both the right and the left.”

“But enough to alter the outcome of the 2020 election?” asked Acosta, asking Wolf “Are you an election denier?”

Wolf answered that “any type of election fraud” was “important” and “should be addressed.”

To be clear, Trump lost over 60 court cases during his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, many of them presided over by judges appointed by Republicans or even Trump himself. Not one found sufficient evidence of fraud that could have conceivably overturned the results in one single state, much less the multiple states Trump would have needed to overcome Joe Biden’s electoral college vote majority.

Acosta followed up with another direct question: “Who won the 2020 election?”

“Obviously Joe Biden is president,” said Wolf.

“No, no, no, no.” Acosta retorted.

“I just answered your question,” Wolf insisted.

“No, but he is the president, obviously,” said Acosta. “He is the president,” Wolf agreed.

“I’ve seen folks from Trump World parse this out, and say, ‘OK, Joe Biden is president.’ We know that, OK, that is a matter of fact,” Acosta said “Do you believe that he won that election fair and square?”

Wolf insisted that he had “just answered the question,” and continued, “One, Joe Biden is president. Two, a number of irregularities, illegalities, and fraud occurred during 2020.”

“But not sufficient to throw the election to Joe Biden,” Acosta interjected.

The two spoke across each other, with Wolf saying he did not “have all that evidence” and there had been reporting on these issues, specifically citing a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling on drop boxes, and Acosta responding, “You sound like a conspiracy theorist.”

The U.S. Supreme Court “wanted nothing to do with anything, any of these challenges,” said Acosta. “Trump lost over and over and over again. Why not accept that? Why not move on?”

Wolf replied, “I have moved on,” and Acosta asked him if Trump should “still be out there peddling the election lies that he spreads every day?” and if Wolf thought the ex-president was “lying about the 2020 election.”

Polling said people on both the left and right “do not have confidence in our election system and that’s a problem,” said Wolf.

“Our elections are fine,” Acosta replied as Wolf scoffed. “You are the former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security and you’re spreading doubt and fear –”

“It’s not doubt,” Wolf interjected.

“– About our election process,” Acosta continued.

“These are facts,” said Wolf.

“These are alternative facts,” said Acosta.

They both then echoed their previous comments, with Acosta saying Biden “won fair and square,” Wolf asking the CNN anchor if he believed there was “no fraud,” Acosta pointing to former Attorney General Bill Barr calling Trump’s claims of fraud “bullsh*t,” Wolf saying again there were “a number of irregularities, illegalities and fraud,” and Acosta replying “not sufficient to alter the outcome.”

“You can’t continue to sow these seeds of doubt about American democracy,” Acosta told Wolf. “It’s simply failing the American people to continue to lead them down this path of lies.”

“So it’s not lies, Jim,” Wolf responded. “I’m happy to go through everything that I just said and to go into detail. I think when you deny the facts, when you deny the facts there has been some amount of fraud — now, I can’t tell you how much — there has been some fraud. There have been illegalities. We see it state after state after state. We haven’t even talked about Zuckerberg, we haven’t even talked about the number of things that occurred –”

“Chad, it sounds like you’ve watched one too many conspiracy films,” said Acosta.

“No, I’m actually reading the news and reading the facts,” said Wolf.

“That’s all the time we have,” said Acosta.

Watch the video above, via CNN.