CNN’s Jim Acosta intrepidly confronted former President Donald Trump’s acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf over the 2020 election results on Sunday. (Watch the videos below.)
In one exchange on “CNN Newsroom,” Acosta asked Wolf point-blank who won the 2020 election and whether he believed Biden triumphed “fair and square.” Wolf acknowledged that Biden was president, but failed to respond directly, claiming that illegalities and fraud existed in elections and should be investigated. (There’s no evidence election fraud affected the 2020 vote.)
Acosta pointed out that Trump pressed his election lies in lawsuits that were shot down more than 60 times in court (often by Republican judges and even some appointed by Trump).
When Wolf said both the left and right “do not have confidence in our election system,” Acosta replied: “Our elections are fine.”
“You are the former acting secretary of Homeland Security and you’re spreading doubt and fear,” Acosta continued.
“These are facts,” Wolf said.
“No, these are alternative facts,” Acosta followed.
Wolf made a toothless call for integrity in elections. A frustrated Acosta snapped that “we also need to have integrity among officials who work in government and who have left the government who will tell the American people the truth.”
Wolf clapped back: “We need to have some integrity by those reporting the news as well.”
Wolf has been under fire in recent weeks after House Jan. 6 committee investigators discovered phones used by he and former Homeland Security acting deputy Ken Cuccinelli had been wiped, destroying text messages from around the time of the Capitol riot.
Trump had been pressing both to back his false claim that the election was rigged and to seize voting machines in key states, according to The Washington Post.