Dr. Anthony Fauci received a call from CNN’s Jim Acosta that created an “awkward moment” during a key COVID meeting in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, according to former White House senior advisor Jared Kushner.
In an excerpt from his new book, “Breaking History: A White House memoir,” that has been obtained by Fox News Digital, Kushner recalled an incident in 2020 when Fauci was interrupted by a call from CNN’s then-chief White House correspondent.
“Early in the pandemic, Fauci was sitting in my office when his phone rang. We both glanced down and saw the caller’s name: Jim Acosta, the president’s chief antagonist on the generally hostile news network CNN. Neither of us acknowledged the awkward moment, but it stuck in my mind,” Kushner wrote.
While journalists call newsmakers on a frequent basis as part of their job, the staunchly anti-Trump reporter calling Fauci directly on his cell was enough to raise Kushner’s eyebrows.
The former White House senior advisor’s reference to Acosta being “the president’s chief antagonist” came after Acosta became notorious for shouting questions, delivering on-air liberal editorials and bickering with Trump and other members of the administration. Trump famously sparred with Acosta on multiple occasions, raising his profile by calling him “fake news.”
While Acosta was CNN’s chief White House reporter during the Trump era, CNN removed him from the beat upon President Biden taking office. When stationed in the White House, Acosta regularly cited anonymous sources to paint Trump in a negative light. For example, on Aug. 5, 2020, he tweeted, “A source familiar with Trump’s Tuesday Oval Office meeting with his coronavirus task force said the president is still not demonstrating that he has a firm grasp of the severity of the pandemic in the US.”
Acosta now hosts a weekend program on CNN and is the network’s “domestic correspondent,” where he continues to make no secret of his left-wing politics. For several months, Acosta pinned a tweet linking to his own segment calling Trump an “insult to clowns.”
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