CNN’s Jim Acosta believes he brought the “heat” to a Wednesday White House press briefing where he got slammed by Trump adviser Stephen Miller.
Acosta seemed to argue during the briefing that the poem on the Statue of Liberty requires that the United States can’t prioritize high-skilled immigrants.
“Aren’t you trying to change what it means to be an immigrant coming into this country if you’re telling them, you have to speak English when they get here?” Acosta asked.
Miller smacked down Acosta’s claim, responding, “it’s a requirement that to be naturalized you have to speak English, so the notion that speaking English wouldn’t be a part of immigration systems would be very ahistorical.” [VIDEO: Stephen Miller Embarrasses ‘Cosmopolitan’ Jim Acosta For Stereotyping Immigrants]
However, according to Acosta, Stephen Miller just couldn’t handle the heat that Acosta was bringing to the briefing.
During a CNN appearance Wednesday night, Acosta said, “We always welcome all kinds of people from all walks of life into this country, all people coming into this country have merit, they shouldn’t be subjected to a point system.”
“I was essentially just trying to test Stephen Miller on a couple of those points and I think what you saw unfold at the briefing was that he just couldn’t take that kind of heat and he exploded before our eyes,” Acosta concluded to the agreement of CNN host Erin Burnett.
WATCH:
During the press briefing, Miller also called out Acosta for stereotyping immigrants when Acosta suggested that the English requirement would only allow immigrants from “Great Britain and Australia.”
“That you think only people from Great Britain or Australia would speak English is so insulting to millions of hardworking immigrants who do speak English from all over the world,” Miller asserted. “Jim, have you honestly never met an immigrant from another country who speaks English outside of Great Britain and Australia? Is that your personal experience?”