Jim Acosta Fact Checks President Trump’s “Camera Just Went Off” Bit at Iowa Rally

OPINION:

CNN’s Jim Acosta, known for causing President Trump headaches and ruffling feathers, was at the Iowa Trump rally last night. President Trump usually does a bit at one time or another in many of his rallies where he complains about what he considers to be the left-leaning media. Sometimes he will even point at the cameras and say “the camera just went off, CNN…” as he did last night.

Jim Acosta, who often gets lots of boos and thumbs down when he attends the Trump rallies to record them, took to Twitter to fact check President Trump, just in case you weren’t sure. “Trump went back to one of his oldest lies at his rally in Iowa tonight, saying CNN turned off its camera when he mentioned the network. Not true. But everybody in the crowd turned around to see”. See tweet below:

Trump went back to one of his oldest lies at his rally in Iowa tonight, saying CNN turned off its camera when he mentioned the network. Not true. But everybody in the crowd turned around to see

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 31, 2020

You can see President Trump say the camera bit in the Media Right News Twitter video clip from the January 30th Iowa rally below:

“The camera just went off” 1-30-2020 Iowa Trump rally: pic.twitter.com/CjEazlWXR9

— Media Right News (@MediaRightNews1) January 31, 2020

Whether or not you believe President Trump means this as a clear joke when he says it, or not, CNN is sure he means it, or if nothing else, sure that many people believe him. They have ‘fact-checked’ him before on this same thing as well. It’s good CNN reports this stuff because people may never know the truth. CNN reported back in November of last year:

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump stood before thousands of supporters in Mississippi on Friday night, squinted and pointed, and told them he was seeing something that was not actually happening.

Trump criticized CNN at length at his campaign rally in Tupelo. Then he gestured toward the back of BancorpSouth Arena and informed the crowd that he had just seen the light on CNN’s camera go out.

“Their light just went off. See? Look. Their light was on — they just turned it off,” he said.

When the light is on, he explained, “that means you’re live.” CNN had stopped broadcasting live, he said, because it didn’t want to air his scathing criticism.

He made up this whole story.

Facts First: CNN was never broadcasting the rally live. CNN was not providing the live “pool” feed to other television networks. CNN’s photojournalist on the scene did not stop recording at any point in the speech. And the light on his camera is set so that it does not go on and off at all. CNN.com streamed the live rally online.

Trump did not make an innocent mistake: this is at least the eighth time as President he has made a baseless claim about the lights on television cameras being turned off as he has criticized the media. We think it’s especially egregious: it’s the President looking at his devotees and deceiving them about something happening in that very room.

You can watch the entire rally from last night in the YouTube clip from Fox News last night below: