Was Jim Acosta set up?
It wouldn’t surprise me if the entire episode with the young woman grabbing the mic from @Acosta were a set-up to put this all into motion.
She wasn’t there, she appears once Acosta begins, she watches Trump for a signal, then she behaves in a way not characteristic of WH aides.
— Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) November 8, 2018
If you look at the video the whole thing seems very odd – she jumps up and charges at Acosta, which surely can’t be normal procedure at a press conference. It’s hard to say, because Trump holds so few of them, but it certainly comes across as weird. And why have a woman do that? Ahhh – to make the male reporter look as if he’s bullying the slender young female intern.
One of the reasons I suspect this was a set-up is the coordinated response at the time it happened.
For those of you who were not on Twitter earlier: as soon as this took place, right-wing accounts here *immediately* began pushing an alleged “assault” narrative against @Acosta.
— Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) November 8, 2018
Within moments of @Acosta asking his question at the presser this morning, hundreds of accounts began spamming multiple hashtags accusing him of assault.
Those same accounts are now pushing the narrative he should be arrested.
Here is one example: pic.twitter.com/tW8QpR8X9J
— Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) November 8, 2018
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8 responses to “She behaves in a way not characteristic of White House aides”
And the widely disseminated video appears to have been doctored, to make Acosta’s movement appear more aggressive.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/11/08/white-house-shares-doctored-video-support-punishment-journalist-jim-acosta/
Yes. I think McElrath goes on to say that.
The whole thing is completely grotesque. White House staffers shouldn’t be physically grabbing mics away from journalists. That’s not how any of this works.
And once we’ve become acclimated to this, which we will in about two days, they won’t have to go to the trouble of setting up a pretense of being provoked. That’s how this works. They’ll just be able to do it, and collectively, we won’t say anything.
Moving into Reichstag fire territory?
Yes. A very miniature Reichstag fire mais c’est le premier pas qui coute.
Cutting someone’s mic doesn’t require physically taking away the mic, it can be done in a civilized fashion by throwing a switch at the soundboard. Now maybe the press pool runs the soundboard, not the White House, but even simpler, Trump can just walk away at any time. All those “access journalists” will police themselves readily enough.
I went further than the online pundits and consulted an FB friend who has spent decades in editing extremely high-profile TV. His first reaction was “yeah, 2-3 frames (that’s all it would take) were removed from the area to accentuate the movement. No other explanation for it being out of sync there. Very subtle but effective.”
Plus, of course, this:
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944/2163793696972413/?type=3&theater
I asked whether compression could also be responsible for the frame loss, rather than only deliberate, and he couldn’t rule it out. Although said friend is also very anti-Trump, he didn’t feel it fair to attach special blame to Sanders in this case.