CNN’s Jim Acosta was seen freaking out when a guest suggested California could be cheating an election to help Democrats get House seats. The guest, May Mailman, said “they do not even allow voter ID” and Acosta got mad.
Acosta said, “wait a minute. Hold on a second… You’re not suggesting that there’s something untoward going on? Please do not tell me that.” The transcript of the conversation makes it even better. This was posted on MSN, transcribed on Mediaite. The video is all the way at the bottom, after the transcript:
MAY MAILMAN: Just putting my American hat on, I’m less concerned about that and more concerned that California is still counting votes. This is something that California really has to figure out. The election was almost a month ago. There are still more than 100,000 votes outstanding.
Some of the tight races, the Republican was up by more than a thousand votes and now they’re losing. They do not even allow voter I.D. They have to–.
JIM ACOSTA: Doesn’t that ha–.
MAY MAILMAN: –deal with signature-matching–
JIM ACOSTA: Hold on a sec! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! May! all right. Hold on a second. You’re not suggesting that there’s something untoward going on. Please do not tell me that!
KAREN FINNEY: (LAUGHS)
MAY MAILMAN: What I know. So I think these are very, very different things. Right. So viewing this and saying, therefore the election is illegitimate is not what I’m saying. Viewing this and saying–.
JIM ACOSTA: Because Donald Trump won–.
MAY MAILMAN: How do you expect people to love this is completely another.
JIM ACOSTA: No. Okay.
KAREN FINNEY: No, but I think also is it Massachusetts? There’s a couple other places where they’re still count.
JIM ACOSTA: Iowa is very tight–.
KAREN FINNEY: I mean there’s– there shouldn’t be anything wrong with taking the time to count the votes and to make sure you get it right, period. Full stop.
JIM ACOSTA: Yeah. And I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole, but I do have a problem with people who are saying, you know, saying that there might be something untoward going on in certain congressional races when Donald Trump won the presidency.
But, you know, to me, it’s sort of like at some point you just have to have faith in elections in this country or what? What the hell are we doing here?
But, Karen, I do want to ask you about Kamala Harris. Go ahead, May if you want to if you want to weigh in.
MAY MAILMAN: No, I.
JIM ACOSTA: And go down this rabbit hole. I just. I just hope–
MAY MAILMAN: I my my point is not that people should distrust their elections. I work for an organization called Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections. I just think that California should take a message here and say–
JIM ACOSTA: Right. But as Karen said, there are other elections that haven’t been.
MAY MAILMAN: If Texas can do it they can do it–
JIM ACOSTA: But as Karen said, there are other elections that haven’t been called. So you’re insinuating that California is up to no good? Is that what you’re doing, May? You might as well just say just say it.
MAY MAILMAN: I’m insinuating that California should not have 100,000 votes outstanding three weeks after the election. I think that we we can all agree that that they should do better. If we can’t agree on that, then–.
JIM ACOSTA: If you’re just saying hurry up, California, that’s fine. Yeah, okay. That’s fine. I want to move on because I don’t I really don’t want to do that.
