White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Tuesday exchanged verbal jabs with CNN journalist Jim Acosta during a discussion over immigration outside the West Wing, telling him no one in the press corps likes him and calling him a "smart a–."
Acosta asked Conway whether President Donald Trump would "tell the truth" during his prime-time address Tuesday night, to which Conway shot back: "Yes, Jim. Can will you promise that you will? The whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Am I allowed to mention 'God' to you?"
"I will, absolutely. I'm not the one who has the alternative-facts problem like you do," Acosta replied.
"Make sure that goes viral," Conway retorted. "By the way, this is why I'm one of the only people around here who even gives you the time of day. Let me get back in your face because you're such a smarta– most of the time, and I know you want this to go viral. A lot of these people don't like you.
"But let me just be respectful to the media at large as I always am. I explained that that was alternative information to additional facts. And I explained it many times. And don't you put it back in my face for all the corrections your network needs to issue. I was on your network 25 or 26 times in 2018. I'm one of the last people here who even bothered to go on, and the disrespect that you show to me personally, I'll look past it."
Acosta, whose press pass was briefly revoked late last year as a result of a heated exchange he had with Trump during a press conference, again challenged Conway whether Trump would be "telling the truth tonight," but Conway instead answered another reporter's question.
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