CNN’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta wrote a new book and many reviews are not looking good for the anti-Trump reporter.
NPR reviewed the book, saying that The Enemy of the People would have been a good place to ask why Trump has succeeded in this project. But Acosta used it as an opportunity to relitigate his spats with the White House rather than to meaningfully interrogate the cultural shift that left huge numbers of people despising and fearing the press.
In The Enemy of the People, Acosta sounds less like a reporter than a rival athlete: “We beat Trump!” Acosta remembers shouting after the lawsuit. Later, he writes, the “Trump people … had clearly gotten spanked.” The tone throughout is jocular and self-congratulatory. Describing a Trump confrontation, he writes that another reporter was “the real hero” of the news conference for defending Acosta, something you only say if you believe you are, in fact, the apparent and obvious hero.
Acosta posted pictures of his book singing, with lots of books, but no people.
Surprise signing at Arlington, Virginia Barnes & Noble! pic.twitter.com/8UCrbfwsQ4
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) June 13, 2019
CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta probably expected fanfare and gratitude from the masses for his book exposing the “dangerous time” journalists are living in thanks to President Trump.
But it seems even reviewers decidedly on the left of the political divide are finding a hard time applauding what seems to be merely Acosta’s book about… Jim Acosta.
From “The Enemy of the People” – ”We weren’t really human to them anymore. This was the climate of fear that Trump had created. In this environment, a Trump supporter could resort to violence, I reasoned. It had become a dangerous time in America.” https://t.co/yPy7wgQowb pic.twitter.com/FycuHm1bhP
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) June 13, 2019
Acosta even tweeted photos of himself at a book signing in Arlington, Virginia that sparked mockery over the absence of any customers.
‘Wow, the crowds!’ Jim Acosta posts book signing photos, proves he still doesn’t understand optics https://t.co/VGa9AvxcAC
— Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) June 13, 2019
Several reviews of Acosta’s book are in and don’t seem to bode well for the reporter who admitted this week that Trump is “crazy like a fox” and controls the press like puppets.