Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta drew a sharp rebuke from the White House this week after posting a sarcastic, self-recorded segment about the disputed damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
“Jim, you are truly one of the dumbest individuals to have ever existed,” the White House rapid response team wrote Wednesday in a post on X.
“Please seek professional help,” the message continued.
The response came under Acosta’s own post, which was captioned in part: “Went looking for the 300 foot ‘slit’ or ‘slits’ in the Reflecting Pool Trump keeps lying about.”
Acosta included a roughly two-and-a-half-minute video showing him walking along the full length of the landmark, dressed casually in summer clothing and sunglasses.
The lighthearted report appeared aimed at challenging President Trump’s Wednesday remarks to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, in which Trump claimed “six or seven” anti-Trump “thugs” had damaged the pool using a blade.
“They had pictures and everything else. They went to the bottom, and it’s not a paint job, it’s very expensive, it’s not rubber — but it’s like rubber — and they went down with probably a box cutter or a very sharp razor of some kind or knife, and they cut,” Trump said.
On Thursday, the National Park Service confirmed that the Reflecting Pool’s liner had indeed been “cut with a sharp knife or razor” earlier in the month.
But Acosta cast doubt. ‘Again, shocker here, I’m sorry to report what he’s saying is 100 percent pure bullsh*t,’ he said after completing his walk.
‘Again, shocker here, I’m sorry to report what he’s saying is 100 percent pure bullsh*t,’ former CNN anchor Jim Acosta told X users to close a tongue-in-cheek ‘report’ that took aim at the Trump administration’s troubled renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool
He opened the ‘segment’ with a wide shot of the sky and some joking acknowledgement to his checkered history with the President.
‘I traveled behind enemy lines, down to the National Mall Reflecting Pool where helicopters circled overhead, to get to the bottom of the biggest mystery in DC right now.
‘I know this assignment is dangerous because I see members of the National Guard circling the pool,’ he continued, speaking from behind the camera.
Some b-roll of what Acosta billed as some ‘cute little ducklings’ followed.
‘They too are afraid,’ Acosta, 55, said in an overly exaggerated news reading style.
The long march – with the camera now turned on Acosta – came next.
‘Up and down this pool so far, I don’t see any sign of any slit.’
The White House responded to the video within hours. A Daily Beast report that outlined the exchange was then reshared by Acosta on Thursday.
The White House Rapid Response team responded to Acosta’s attempt to clear up Donald Trump’s claims about a gash being cut into the pool’s bottom
The administration’s more than $14 million renovation of the Reflecting Pool by a never-before-used contractor has been met with criticism after it failed to account for algae blooms that have turned much of the pool green.
A top official at the National Park Service, Deputy Director Frank Lands, filed a court document late Wednesday as part of a lawsuit filed by a nonprofit to halt the construction.
A statement within pointed to damage to the pool, including a ‘350-foot gash’ cut into a liner along its bottom ‘with a sharp knife or razor and destruction of delaminating surface material.’
The statement was the first from an administration official to offer specifics on when and how the Reflecting Pool may have been damaged. The agency reported the incident took place on June 9.
Trump has promised to improve the more than 100-year-old Reflecting Pool in time for the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations.
The desired hue of the water is ‘American flag blue.’
Trump has previously said officials will release images and ‘proof’ to support his vandalism claim.
Acosta left CNN last year after refusing to take part in a reshuffle that would have seen his morning show moved to midnight. Trump was sworn into office days earlier. Acosta said he would refuse ‘to bow down to a tyrant’ on-air, at the time.
He married PBS NewsHour’s Liz Landers, 35, last month. He operates a Substack called the ‘The Jim Acosta Show.’
