CNN reporter Jim Acosta told President Trump to call on female reporters during a press conference in New York City Wednesday.
“Thank you very much,” Jim Acosta said after being called on by Trump. “If you don’t mind, after I’m finished, if…one of our female colleagues could go after me, that would be great. Mr. President, just to follow up on…”
“What does he mean by that? Explain,” Trump shot back.
“I think it would be great if a female…” Acosta said.
“What does it mean? No, what does it mean?” Trump said.
“It would be great if a female reporter could ask a question about this issue,” Acosta responded.
“I wouldn’t mind that at all…wouldn’t make any difference to me,” Trump said.
Acosta finally asked his question:
Why is it, Mr. President, that you always seem to side with the accused and not the accuser? You have three women here who are all making allegations, who are all asking that their stories be heard. And, you know, if you look at the case of Roy Moore, if you look at the case of one of your staffers, you seem to time and again side with the accused and not the accuser. Is that because of the many allegations that you’ve had made against you over the years?
Trump replied:
Well, first of all, I wasn’t happy with Roy Moore. Let’s get that straight. But, Roy Moore was a–Republican candidate. And I would have rather had a Republican candidate win. I was very happy with Luther Strange. He was a terrific man from Alabama, but Luther Strange had a lot of things going against him. As far as women, whether it’s a man or a woman, these are–you know, it can happen the other way. Allegations can go the other way also–you understand that. And, whether it was a man or a woman, 30 years ago, 36 years ago–in fact, they don’t even know how many years ago, because nobody knows what the time is.
“That’s a long time, and I could pick, as an example, hopefully I won’t have to do it as a replacement, because hopefully this is going to go very well on Thursday. It’s going to go very well on Monday or Saturday or Sunday, or whenever they vote, but I could pick a woman, and she could have charges made from many years ago also,” Trump added.