CNN anchor Jim Acosta insists that declaring former President Trump a "greater threat to American democracy" than President Biden is simply a matter of fact.
In an interview published by Mediaite on Friday, Acosta was asked to react to comments made this week by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said he could "make the argument" that Biden is a "much worse threat to democracy" based on his administration's actions behind the scenes in aiding the censoring of speech on social media platforms through closed-door communications with the Big Tech giants.
"Obviously, it’s false," Acosta reacted. "And that’s not taking Joe Biden’s point of view here, that’s not taking the Democratic point of view here. The Cleveland Plain Dealer editor-in-chief over there who put out an op-ed this past weekend put it best. If you are to compare these two presidents, you can’t say, ‘Well, they both pose equal threats to American democracy.’ You can’t say what Robert F. Kennedy said and say that Joe Biden, it could be argued, poses a greater threat to American democracy. I mean, that’s just false. It’s patently false. You could look at the objective facts without any kind of bias or skew on anything and just say that that’s just not the case."
RFK JR. GETS MOBBED BY MEDIA FACT-CHECKERS FOR SAYING BIDEN IS 'MUCH WORSE' FOR DEMOCRACY THAN TRUMP
Acosta recalled being at the White House on January 6 as a CNN correspondent covering Trump "not acting when there was an attack on the Capitol" and how administration staffers were telling him that "they were quitting" over the then-president's lack of response.
"It is one of the darkest days that I’ve ever witnessed in my career covering the news," Acosta told Mediaite. "I never thought I would see a President of the United States just sit there and not do anything when there are people storming the Capitol and saying they wanted to hang the vice president. That episode in and of itself, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, calling the Georgia Secretary of State and all the other things that were going on, alternate slate of electors, I mean you can go on and on and on about this, but just the actions of that day, objectively speaking, factually speaking, without any bias or skew whatsoever, makes him a greater threat to American democracy than Joe Biden."
"I mean, that’s just looking at the facts of the matter. That’s not somebody coming in and saying, ‘Hey, this is my point of view here.’ That’s just looking at the facts," Acosta added.
Acosta, who became a household name for his adversarial relationship with Trump and his White House, was adamantly opposed to the idea of returning to the briefing room if Trump is re-elected.
"No, no, no," Acosta responded. "I mean, I did about seven and a half years at the White House for CNN. I did the second Obama term, which nobody remembers."
Following the Trump presidency, CNN reassigned Acosta as a weekend anchor and recently shuffled him to weekdays as part of a programming overhaul.
