Total chaos during Donald Trump press conference as his racism scandal spirals out of control
We’re several days into Donald Trump’s “shithole countries” scandal, and it’s showing no signs of going away. In fact it’s getting bigger, louder, and uglier by the hour. Trump’s Homeland Security Director Kirstjen Nielsen, who was in the infamous meeting, was grilled today on live television by angry Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Trump made the mistake of showing his own face before the cameras back at the White House, and it quickly went haywire.
Trump held a joint press conference today with the President of Kazakhstan, with whom he’s been laundering money for several years. That was surreal enough, before getting to the questions from reporters, which were mostly about Trump’s racism scandal. CNN reporter Jim Acosta asked Trump this question: “Did you say that you want more people to come in from Norway? Did you say that you wanted more people from Norway? Is that true Mr. President?” Trump gave a weak answer, so Acosta tried asking a followup question. This promoted Trump to point at him and say “out,” demanding that Acosta be thrown out of the room.
Acosta then took to Twitter to reveal just how chaotic the exchange truly was: “As I attempted to ask questions in Roosevelt Room of Trump, WH press aides shouted in my face to drown out my questions. I have never encountered that before. What occurred reminded me of something I would see in a different country. Certainly not at the WH. Certainly not in the U.S.” So at this point we have esteemed reporters trying to shout questions at Trump while Trump’s people get in the reporter’s face and try to shout him down, only for Trump to demand that the reporter be thrown out of the press conference for asking a question.
Even as the chaotic scene was playing out with Donald Trump and the reporter at the White House, Trump’s Homeland Security Director was busy telling as many lies as she could to Congress. At one point a frustrated Senator Cory Booker was angrily spelling out how inappropriate Trump’s racist remarks were as the cameras captured it all. The fallout from Donald Trump’s racism scandal is now dissolving into total chaos, and it feels like something is about to give.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report