Jim Acosta Mocks Trump’s ‘Grievance Groundhog Day’: ‘He Gets Up Every Day, Gripes About the Election, and Wakes Up the Next Day Still a Loser’

CNN’s Jim Acosta responded to reports of former President Donald Trump’s remarks at a Republican donor event at Mar-a-Lago by mocking him as going through every day as a “grievance groundhog day.”

According to multiple reports, Trump took a profane detour from his prepared remarks Saturday, delivering a scorched-earth tirade against a long list of his foes. He reportedly slammed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as a “dumb son of a bitch” and a “stone cold loser,” Dr. Anthony Fauci as “full of crap,” and similarly mature comments about former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), and even Oprah Winfrey.

“For Donald Trump, every day is kind of a grievance groundhog day,” said Acosta to introduce the segment with Margaret Hoover and John Avlon. “It seems he gets up every day, gripes about the election, and wakes up the next day still a loser.”

“After airing complaints about the election in his Easter message and at a recent wedding toast, he kept it up at a RNC donor dinner last night,” Acosta continued. “He called the results BS, slammed his own vice president for certifying them and said, this is a direct quote, ‘if that were Schumer instead of that dumb son of a bitch Mitch McConnell they would never have allowed it to happen.’ End quote. That is the former President of the United States. The comments, by the way, were met with applause. What a retreat, indeed.”

Acosta turned to Hoover for her take. She expressed skepticism about how much Republicans really were flocking to Trump, noting that McConnell obviously wasn’t; he was focused on regaining power in 2022.

“Notice, that was a Republican National Committee retreat,” said Hoover. “And they all had to go to him?”

Trump, she added was “going to find that if you are a president out of power, your power wanes pretty quickly, and we’re seeing this with Donald Trump. So I am not so sure this is his formula for coming back or, frankly, regaining power.”

“What’s your take on it?” Acosta asked Avlon.

“First all, I think you get points for coming up with grievance groundhog day.”

“Bill Murray references are always welcome on this program,” replied Acosta.

In Avlon’s view, Trump’s “schtick” was “wearing thin even among donors,” and while that might be popular with the GOP base, that sort of negative and divisive message wasn’t going to help win elections.

“The question is whether people like Mitch McConnell will stop playing footsie with this Stockholm syndrome and come out and say, no, he should not be the nominee in 2024, just draw a clear line in the sand,” said Avlon. “It’s not like they’ve got any rational excuse other than fear.”

“Mitch McConnell should do what Liz Cheney did,” said Hoover, “which is explicitly say, he shouldn’t be doing that, by calling the election a fraud and continuing to propagate the big lie. He is undermining the constitution, the rule of law, and our judicial system. And that is against the premise of the founding of this country and we need to be for the constitution.”

“We need way more of Liz Cheney and way less of Donald Trump,” concluded Hoover.

Watch the video above, via CNN.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com