‘It’s Not A Garbage Can!’ CNN’s Jim Acosta Rips Pro-Trumper’s Defense Against New Trump Rant

CNN anchor Jim Acosta confronted former Trump spokesman Marc Lotter over former President Donald Trump’s rant calling the United States a “garbage can” — and pushed back hard at Lotter’s defense.

During a rally in Tempe, Arizona Thursday night, Trump ranted, “We’re a dumping ground. We’re like a garbage can for the world. That’s what’s happened. That’s what’s happened to our– we’re like a garbage can.”

Trump seemed to shock even himself, noting, “First time I’ve ever said ‘garbage can.’ But you know what? It’s a very accurate description.”

On Friday’s edition of CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta, Acosta contrasted Trump’s rant — implicitly calling human beings who cross the border “garbage” — with Ronald Reagan’s “Shining City” speech, and was unimpressed by Lotter’s response:

JIM ACOSTA: The party has changed, has it not? I mean, I do want to play a clip. This is from we played this in the previous hour. This is Ronald Reagan talking about a shining city on the Hill. I want to play it again in case viewers missed it in the last hour. There are a lot of younger viewers out there who weren’t around when Ronald Reagan was president. This is how Ronald Reagan saw America.

RONALD REAGAN: I thought a bit of the shining city on a hill. In my mind, it was a tall, proud city built on rocks, stronger than oceans, windswept, God blessed and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace.

A city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.

JIM ACOSTA: Mark, you and I have been around for a while. You’ve been in the political world. I’ve covered politics. That is all. I mean that what what has happened to Ronald Reagan’s Republican Party right there?

He not only talks about America being a shining city on the Hill, he also talks about it being a city. If it has a wall, it has a door. And the people who have the wherewithal, the spunk, the fight to get here, that they’re welcome here, too.

And you have Trump out there calling this country a garbage can because of immigrants coming here. I don’t you know, I don’t I can’t imagine you see America that same way. Don’t you see it as the shining city on a hill?

MARC LOTTER: I’ll point to one of the other great phrases that Ronald Reagan ran on in 1980, which was Make America Great Again. And that does sound awfully familiar here.

And when when I hear Donald Trump talking about wanting to rebuild America, whether it’s through our infrastructure, our economy, our energy, our military. I see him doing the exact same things.

And even when it comes to immigration, the president was very clear during his four years in the White House, he was for legal immigration. He wants to stop illegal immigration.

And so I think that is still with the door that Ronald Reagan was talking about. But open the door. Don’t break through the window. Don’t come in over the wall or under it. Come in through the door legally. And I think that’s what President Trump’s talking about.

JIM ACOSTA: Yeah, I just I think if people look outside, I mean, you don’t we don’t have to do a fact check. You could just go outside your your your house, Look outside the door. Look outside the window. It’s not a garbage can!

But. All right. Mark Lauder, thanks very much. We appreciate it. We’ll be right back.

Watch above via CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta.