It’s kind of cute how you think these are real rules and actual facts.
IME this is demonstrably untrue: I have never once seen or heard of Trump researching a reporter’s past words on a subject and then questioning them about what they said. Also: why do you think a question should be answered with a counter-question and why do you call them “punches”?
You are confusing “counter-punch” with “sucker-punch”.
That’s not surprising, and they’re not dealing with a popular president now. (52.9% negative, 42.6% positive at time of post.)
The President works for us; the press–who are part of “us”–don’t work for him. When an employee lies repeatedly to their supervisors, it’s time for some tough questions.
And this is one hella mendacious employee.
Suspect away. Do you suspect the same of that Atlantic article I linked?
We’ve known the answer to this for over 2 years. The good news is things haven’t worsened/escalated much in that time, other than Huckabee-Sanders displaying a significantly more toxic attitude toward a free press than Spicer did. The bad news is the passage of 2 years makes the corrosiveness of lying and calling the media the enemy of the people more normalized; and it can and will turn into something far worse if Trump finds himself fenced in by a scandal.
I don’t sense the Acosta situation is going to matter in the big picture unless it begets a trend that happens to others. The basics of the conflict can’t be that aberrant from quarrels other presidents have had with guys who push limits.
Weak deflection is weak…but not unexpected.
was he counter punching when he used to call the NYC media pretending to be someone else and then praised himself?
My first thought on seeing doorhinge’s nonsense was, “Who was he counter-punching when he called for the execution of five innocent people in the Central Park Five case?” But your question is perhaps better!
Trump wants to undermine the role of the press when they point out that he is bullshitting, which is their job.
He wants to praise the role of the press when they suck his dick, like Hannity.
It’s that simple.
Or rather, doorhinge is just drinking the Koolaid of Trump’s bullshit persona. Lying like a five-year-old with his hand in the cookie jar is not a “counter-punch.” The adults don’t buy it, and he throws a temper tantrum.
You’re the one deflecting. You refuse to endorse the posturing style of journalism, in fact I have no idea if you think that it is or not. I’m not a press corp fanboy. I don’t have a favorite asker of questions. Why should I worry about disproving your sneaky suspicion that I’m really a Trump lover in disguise?
doorhinge is right. Why, Trump says so himself, in this 2016 interview with Megyn Kelly!
Donald Trump explains being a ‘counter-puncher’
(Although, I listened to the whole interview, and I don’t believe he ever used the term ‘counter-puncher’. But that’s what the headline says.)
No, not even close to that. C’mon, dear USAians, try harder for the “Trump is a dictator!!” thingy.
When someone lies, the time to address the lie is right then and there.
And the reason why Acosta didn’t ask a question is because Trump never gave him the opportunity to. All questions must, necessarily, be based on premises. Honest questions are based on true premises. If Acosta was asking a question based on the true premise that the “caravan” is not an invasion, but the person he is asking the question of does not accept that true premise, then it is necessary to first establish the truth of the premise.
That was certainly out of left field. 
Did you mean to post this in some other thread?
Ok, what do you imagine the real question was going to be after Acosta finally browbeat Trump into accepting the truth of his premise? How long should the rest of the room wait?
Poor, poor put-upon Trump.
Not really. Here’s his question as he probably had it written down, with the president’s interruptions and insults removed:
It’s somewhat gotcha, but it allows for an actual answer. An answer that I’d consider stupid and racist, but an answer, like, say,
The question of “why did you characterize it as such?” is a perfectly legitimate question, and it allows a perfectly plausible answer (I was going to say “legitimate,” discarded that for “reasonable,” and am pretty unhappy with “plausible”, too). Trump’s decision to not answer the question doesn’t make it a bad question.
Yes. In fact, most of the questions asked by the White House press pool are insulting to the American people, because they’re such lame-ass questions. They’re dead-end YES-NO questions:*Mr. President, do you still have confidence in ___________?
Mr. President, are you going to fire _____________?
Mr. President, will you apologize for ______________?
Mr. President, do you regret _______________?*All pathetic YES-NO questions which don’t get anywhere closer to holding Trump accountable.
I think what made it a bad question was that it was essentially a question that begged itself, or poisoned the well, or maybe some other fallacies to boot. To remove this from Trump, imagine if a Fox News reporter asked you:
“Mr. Dorkness, you said that Five Guys cheeseburgers are the best. But you are wrong. Why did you say something wrong?”
If you do have fondness for Five Guys, of course the first thing out of your mouth is going to dispute the editorializing of the reporter that Five Guys are not the best. Because after all, that’s just a reporter stating an opinion that his interviewer is wrong!
In my opinion, there’s quite a few ways to improve upon the question. Drop the bare assertion that the interviewee was wrong (or untruthful), cite experts who have an objective opinion on what constitutes a cheeseburger, and so on. But framing a question as “I’m stating my opinion in contradiction to yours, and the premise of my question is that I’m right and you’re wrong” is just an invitation to a goat rope, not a substantive response.
Of course, I fully agree that it is not an invasion, that Trump couldn’t answer a question if his life depended on it, but I just don’t think it was a good question.
It occurs to me that there’s another sort of answer that question allows: crazy to say, it allows for an informative answer:
Still problematic, but perhaps the president actually had a non-racist reason for characterizing a bunch of refugees as an invasion. A question that provides him with the opportunity, at least in theory, not to be a racist shitbird is a perfectly fine question.
The idea that Acosta is a bad journalist does not seem supported by this question. As it ties directly into Trump’s campaign against a free press and against facts, I’m not inclined to support him.