By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-30 20:46:59 | Updated at 2025-01-31 01:16:57
4 hours ago
Jim Acosta reignited his years-long tiff with Donald Trump over the president's 'finger-pointing' following the deadly plane crash over Washington, DC.
Hours before in a press conference, Trump blamed the Biden and Obama administrations' diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies for the crash, which killed 67 people.
In response, a newly unemployed Acosta took to X to slam the comments, quoting another president in the process.
'Harry Truman famously said “the buck stops here,”' the former CNN star tweeted. 'Trump is trying to pass the buck and blame everybody but his administration for the DC plane crash,' he went on, referring to Trump's 11 am presser.
'This is a time for consoling the families and investigating the cause of this tragedy, not shameful finger pointing.'
Acosta's latest X post is part of a long, heated back-and-forth between the former CNN correspondent and the president.
Two days before, Acosta confirmed on the air he was quitting the network after being booted from his 10 am timeslot and amid a change in guidelines made by its CEO limiting the network's opinionated reporting about the president.
Choosing not to play ball, Acosta engaged in a pointed signoff toward the end of Tuesday's CNN Newsroom where he took aim at Trump, framing him as a 'tyrant.'
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Jim Acosta reignited his years-long tiff with Donald Trump Thursday - panning the president for 'finger-pointing' following the plane crash over Washington, DC. Hours before, Trump blamed DEI policies for the crash, which killed 67
He did so with no evidence, leading a newly unemployed Acosta to offer his take on the comments, while quoting another president - Harry S. Truman
Minutes earlier, Trump rubbed reports of the exit in the anchor's face, before appearing before reporters on Thursday to address the tragedy.
'Brilliant people have to be in those positions,' Trump said of staffers within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), eight days after implementing a hiring freeze on federal workers that included air traffic controllers.
'A group within the FAA determined that the workforce was too white, then they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it immediately,' Trump went on, adding, 'This was in the Obama administration.'
'He’s a disaster now,' he added of Pete Buttigieg, who no longer heads the Department of Transportation.
'He’s just got a good line of bullsh*t,' Trump continued.
'Well he runs it, 45,000 people,' he said in reference to Buttigieg and the FAA. 'And he’s run it right into the ground with his diversity.'
In his own post to X, penned just before Acosta's, Buttigieg called Trump’s comments 'despicable,' while criticizing the conservative for 'lying' on national TV.
'We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch,' Buttigieg fumed.
'Brilliant people have to be in those positions,' Trump said of staffers within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), as bodies were still being pulled from the Potomac River
'A group within the FAA determined that the workforce was too white, then they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it immediately,' Trump went on, adding, 'This was in the Obama administration.'
When asked for concreted evidence previous administrations' penchant for diversity played a part in the crash, Trump could only engage in conjecture. He told reporters it was 'common sense'. Pictured, the moment the military-owned Blackhawk flew into the passenger plane
'Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.'
When asked for concrete evidence that diversity somehow played a part in the crash, Trump merely told reporters it was 'common sense' and he had some 'pretty good ideas' of how the disaster occurred.
He also vowed to make sure it would never happen again, while insisting he has always put 'safety' first - while presidents Obama and Biden prioritized politics.
Meanwhile, more than half a day later, the cause of the crash between the American Airlines flight and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter remains unexplained, and is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Directly after the crash, Acosta's now-former colleague Bakari Sellers engaged in some conjecture himself, with a tweet that insinuated Trump's freeze on federal hiring played a part in the disaster.
'Eight days ago,' Sellers captioned the post on X, as the cause of the crash remained unexplained.
Almost immediately, he was met with outrage from other users, who criticized him for politicizing a tragedy.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg jumped in on the action, saying Trump should 'be leading, not lying' during such a disaster. Trump named him as the president pondered a cause during the 11am press conference
'Americans are currently being fished out of the Potomac, and rather than have reverence for the victims, you chose to dishonestly (and despicably) blame,' one such user said, pointing to footage being aired on Sellers' own station.
'The freeze has not affected any ATC command centers ANYWHERE after January 20th. There is no bottom low enough for @CNN,' another pointed out, poking holes in the pundit's suggestion.
Amid the torrent of criticism, Sellers took down the post. He went on to offer an apology on Wednesday night, all within two hours of the incident, which remains under investigation.
