Vociferously anti-Trump CNN reporter Jim Acosta was covering President Donald Trump’s Tuesday rally in Tampa, FL when he received a chorus of boos amid chants that “CNN sucks” — and of course, he whined and complained about the treatment he received afterward.
But Fox News host Sean Hannity said later that evening that there was a “reason” why Acosta received the treatment that he did from Trump’s supporters, and it stemmed directly from the overtly biased anti-Trump coverage of the president provided by Acosta and CNN.
“They’re not wrong”
According to The Hill, Hannity devoted much of his Opening Monologue on Tuesday evening to try to explain to Acosta and others in the media that they had earned the disrespect and heckling they received by negatively covering Trump about virtually everything.
“Jim, they’re not wrong, it’s not false,” Hannity said of the criticisms Acosta had received from the crowd. “I’m gonna actually give your network some advice, if you have an open mind and open heart, maybe a little humility.”
Hannity went on: “The people of this country, they’re screaming at you for a reason. They don’t like your unfair, abusively biased treatment of the president of the United States.
“Now, if you want to earn the respect of all Americans, not just the coastal elites in California, L.A., San Francisco, D.C. and New York,” Hannity said, “maybe try reporting the entire story, maybe try getting rid of the bias, maybe examine, ‘Why are people saying this to us?'”
Hannity then played a montage of clips of Acosta being exceptionally critical and opinionated about Trump, saying: “This is why they’re doing it.”
Watch the full monologue:
“That’s why Americans don’t trust you”
After more than a minute and a half of example after example of Acosta’s obvious bias, Hannity quipped: “Jim Acosta, that’s called opinion, and you’re extremely rude, oh, and a liberal partisan hack. That’s why Americans don’t trust you or ‘fake news’ CNN.”
Hannity went on: “You pretend to be a fair and unbiased journalist — you’re not! You’re not reporting facts, you’re giving your opinion, you’re an opinion channel, every minute of every day of every week, 24/7 hate Trump.”
He concluded: “It’s pretty obvious and the people see it, so instead of maybe doubling down on your anti-Trump rage, maybe look inward… analyze objectively the overwhelming, non-stop, hysterical coverage against the president.”
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Sean Hannity let it rip when it came to the whining from Acosta about the harsh treatment he received from Trump supporters at the rally in Tampa, pointing directly at Acosta’s own history of unduly harsh coverage of the president as the most obvious reason why.
Whether Acosta and his comrades in the anti-Trump media will ever acknowledge it or not, Hannity is absolutely right that their own actions have brought such heckling upon themselves — and they have nobody else to blame for it.