Another Day, Another Media Meltdown
Somebody might want to get the AP a blankie.
In political playground news this week, apparently Donald Trump didn’t invite Jim Acosta to his birthday party, so the former CNN anchor has been reaching out to every reporter, journalist, show host, talking head, and Instagram influencer on the guest list and begging them to boycott Trump’s Tremendous Birthday Bash: The Orange Jubilee.
“The media needs to band together and send a message to Washington that if you’re mean to one of us, you’re mean to all of us,” Acosta wrote in an email that’s been shared on X four million times this morning alone. “The White House should know better. President Trump should know better. I hope not a single person shows up to his stupid party and that he chokes on his birthday cake.”
In semi-related news, Dairy Queen, the Warren Buffet-owned parent company of beverage giant Orange Julius, is suing President Trump for trademark infringement and unfair competition for attempting to appropriate the iconic citrus drink with his birthday celebration’s subtitle.
Okay, fine. None of that happened. But what did go down is nearly as ridiculous.
It started with Trump’s controversial decision to change the Gulf of Mexico’s centuries-old moniker to the Gulf of America. The Associated Press, whose style guide is used by countless news and publishing outlets as the definitive word on language standards, decided that they were going to ignore Trump’s rebranding stunt and continue to refer to the Gulf by its original name.
“What a disgrace,” Trump probably said. “A total failure. Believe me, a complete mess.”
I’m not saying that going Freaky Friday on the infamous bay was or wasn’t a frivolous, unnecessary idea (although I will speculate that surely 47 has to have more pressing issues to focus on during these first few critical weeks back in office). I’m simply saying Acosta’s reaction to the situation is giving major third grade vibes.
After urging news outlets everywhere to publicize their support for the AP, Acosta’s suggestion to the entire press corps was “[to refuse] to cover presidential movements in solidarity until Trump backs down.”
“Trump may respond by inviting only sycophants and right-wing hacks to chronicle his daily decrees,” Acosta speculated without even a trace of sarcasm. “Fine. Let the American people soak that in—the image of an aspiring autocrat and his servile propagandists.”
It’s been well established that the left-wing media actively suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story to protect The Big Guy’s campaign. When Tara Reade accused Joe Biden of sexual assault in 2020, the servile propagandists at The New York Times played downplay-and-deflect with the story. The ABC presidential debate moderators were arguably and “egregiously biased in favor of Harris,” to Trump’s glaring disadvantage. And when the liberal media covered Biden’s disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, they spoke to the “challenges” of the operation and not the massive failures in execution or the Taliban’s swift takeover that followed.
So please, Mr. Acosta, tell us in delicious detail what the aspiring autocrat’s hand-picked sycophants and right-wing hacks are likely to do if given access to him exactly.
The whole thing couldn’t be more Meta if it tried. “Let’s not report on anything Trump does because free speech.”
In his own seething Substack, Acosta summed up the brouhaha better than I could:
Late last week, Deputy White House chief of staff Taylor Budowich announced in an Orwellian social media post that the AP would be banished from its position in what reporters refer to as “the pool,” over its editorial decision to stick with the Gulf of Mexico.
“The Associated Press continues to ignore the lawful geographic name change of the Gulf of America. This decision is not just divisive, but it also exposes the Associated Press' commitment to misinformation,” Budowich said on X.
“While their right to irresponsible and dishonest reporting is protected by the First Amendment, it does not ensure their privilege of unfettered access to limited spaces, like the Oval Office and Air Force One. Going forward, that space will now be opened up to the many thousands of reporters who have been barred from covering these intimate areas of the administration. Associate Press journalists and photographers will retain their credentials to the White House complex,” he added.
Perhaps Mr. Acosta has forgotten about how when the Biden administration revoked nearly a third of the press passes that allowed reporters into White House briefings, the disinvitations disproportionately targeted conservative news outlets. Maybe he hasn’t noticed that Trump has given nearly daily press conferences in his first month of being reinstated, in contrast to the nine Biden held during his entire first year. And it won’t be easy—the man is younger than me, for crying out loud—but I’ll try to forgive him for letting the little fact of Obama’s DOJ literally spying on AP reporters slip his mind. It’s been a minute, and Acosta’s mental inbox is probably pretty jammed since CNN announced they were moving him from prime time to the graveyard shift and he handed in his resignation. You almost have to feel bad for the guy.
So, to recap: The same guy who made a career out of theatrically grandstanding in the White House press room is now demanding that the entire press corps give Trump the middle-finger salute for exercising the executive powers that come with his job. You do have to admire the “If I can’t sit at the cool kids’ table, nobody should eat lunch at all” energy of it all. Meanwhile, Trump is out there actually updating the American people on a regular basis while Acosta furiously types away on Substack like a kid making a PowerPoint on why my mom is so totally unfair. If irony were a stock, we’d all be rich.
P.S. The AP drama isn’t the only one muddying the U.S.-Mexican waters. Our sister to the south is now threatening to sue Google if it insists on using “Gulf of America” on their maps, arguing that Trump’s executive order applies only to the part of the continental shelf belonging to the United States. (They’re not wrong.) “Under no circumstances does Mexico accept the renaming of any geographic area that includes part of its national territory and that is under its jurisdiction," President Claudia Sheinbaum said.
Trump has yet to respond, but when he does, I imagine it will sound something like this: “Look, Mexico is very upset, very upset. But let me tell you, nobody respects Mexico more than me—nobody. They should actually be thanking me! ‘Gulf of America’ is a beautiful name, a tremendous name. Much better than ‘Gulf of Mexico.’ And we gave them a terrific deal on this. Very fair. Fairer than NAFTA—NAFTA was a disaster, by the way. Total disaster.”
As always, stay tuned to Jenna’s Side for updates.
He didn’t rename it Gulf of The United States. Mexico and much of the counties in North, Central and South America have repeatedly reminded us that they are also part of “America”. Most of Mexico prefers to call us “Americans” “Estadounidense” instead, since Mexico considers itself part of America and they would also be Americanos. They also tend to call us Gringos (term for Yankee). This is why the feigned horror by Acosta and others is just ridiculous. Especially when we are told we must use a bunch of made up pronouns.
Check out the Gulf of California - totally bordered by MEXICO, Where is the outrage?