Without former President Donald Trump to browbeat long after his question time had ended, CNN’s Jim Acosta has needed new targets over this last year with Democrat Joe Biden now sitting in the Oval Office.
Shifting away from White House coverage, Acosta has tried to keep the dream alive with a Sunday show during which he can go after the likes of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson and Republican lawmakers and utter naughty words.
But this weekend Acosta dug his claws into new prey: None other than Bari Weiss — a liberal and former opinion editor of the New York Times.
Say what?
Weiss appeared on the latest episode of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” Friday and said she’s “done” with COVID-19 after two years of “ridiculous” masks, mandates, and lockdowns.
She also threw shade at the promise that the vaccines would get us “back to normal” and then observed that “we haven’t gotten back to normal.”
“I know that so many of my liberal and progressive friends are with me on this, and they do not want to say it out loud because they are scared to be called ‘anti-vax’ or to be called ‘science deniers’ or to be smeared as a Trumper,” Weiss told Maher, soon adding that the younger generation will remember our COVID response as a “catastrophic moral crime.”
Acosta didn’t like that very much
During his Sunday show Acosta ripped Weiss for her remarks.
“I’m done with that attitude, honestly,” he said. “She needs to understand that trolling people to own the libs is not a sacrifice.”
Acosta at the time was interviewing CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Fox News said, and the good doctor was equally as dismissive, saying Weiss was acting “like a child” and that she needs to “grow up.”
‘Grow up’: Doctor responds to journalist’s Covid restriction comments
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But that ain’t all
Fox News added that MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan blasted Weiss for “moaning” about the pandemic during his “60 Second Rant” segment Sunday.
“Oh, it’s ridiculous, is it?” he countered as if speaking to Weiss, the cable network said. “People who should be complaining right now are our overworked and burned-out healthcare workers. But no. It’s never them moaning or whining about the pandemic.”
“My young children have handled this pandemic more maturely and less childishly than the likes of Bari Weiss who, I’m sorry, can’t go to as many indoor parties as she’d like to,” he added, according to Fox News.
And Jennifer Rubin — who bills herself on Twitter as a “NeverTrump, pro-democracy opinion writer” at the Washington Post — said of Weiss, “Talk about utterly losing your moral compass.”