--- title: The Fraudulent Acosta video messes with the mind description: The clip released by the White House exploits human perception canonical: https://time.com/5449401/jim-acosta-cnn-trump-video/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-11-08T22:16:43.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-13T08:05:45.940Z article:section: Science og:title: How That Viral Video of a White House Reporter Is Messing With Your Mind og:description: People see what they want to see in the Jim Acosta footage, experts say og:url: https://time.com/5449401/jim-acosta-cnn-trump-video/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b6cc4e0dbed9af5/69893ea7457a52374ed5fd61/jim-acosta-trump-cnn.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4500 og:image:height: 2531 og:image:alt: Jim Acosta Trump CNN og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How That Viral Video of a White House Reporter Is Messing With Your Mind twitter:description: People see what they want to see in the Jim Acosta footage, experts say twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b6cc4e0dbed9af5/69893ea7457a52374ed5fd61/jim-acosta-trump-cnn.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How That Viral Video of a White House Reporter Messes With Your Mind > Sponsored content. 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Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=169dced8-1259-4dc1-abf6-1ec06ab8b36c&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Full Exchange of President Trump's Clash With CNN's Jim Acosta [Watch (HLS stream): Full Exchange of President Trump's Clash With CNN's Jim Acosta](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/awijApEQ.m3u8) (2:38)  _Published 2018-11-08. Full Exchange of President Trump and CNN's Jim Acosta_  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Nov 8, 2018 10:16 PM UTC Full Exchange of President Trump and CNN's Jim Acosta  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Nov 8, 2018 10:16 PM UTC A terrible thing did not happen in the White House press room on Wednesday. In a sudden non-attack in front of a roomful of non-horrified witnesses, CNN reporter Jim Acosta did not lunge at, strike or place his hands “on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern.” It would be a very bad thing if that had happened. But it didn’t. So that’s good. You would not know this, however, if you believed a [statement](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jim-acosta-cnn-press-pass-suspended-white-house-president-trump-today-2018-11-07/) released by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, claiming that the attack occurred (which, once more, it didn’t) or, worse, if you saw the edited video she [tweeted out](https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1060374680991883265) purporting to show the incident unfolding. > [](https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1060374680991883265) Significantly, this version of the clip, which was taken from the live [broadcast of the full, heated exchange](https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1060224857286369280) between Acosta and President Donald Trump, wasn’t altered by just anyone with iMovie. It was the handiwork of YouTube personality, conspiracy theorist and accomplished web troll [Paul Joseph Watson](https://www.thedailybeast.com/alex-jones-protege-paul-joseph-watson-is-about-to-steal-his-crackpot-crown), editor at large for the conspiracy site InfoWars and former contributor to the radio show of über conspiracy hustler [Alex Jones](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/alex-jones-5-most-disturbing-ridiculous-conspiracy-theories.html). Together, Watson and Jones have peddled such non-peer-reviewed notions as the [danger of chemtrails](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-42195511) and the approach of the New World Order. So, not exactly [Peabody Award-winners](http://peabodyawards.com) here. Perfectly reasonable people could have perfectly reasonable disagreements about whether Acosta was merely engaging in vigorous questioning or had crossed the line into hectoring — a disagreement that is hardly without precedent in the long history of White House press conferences. What made Wednesday’s incident different was not just that the Watson video is deceptive, and that the White House Press Secretary then trafficked in it. More troubling was how easily the edited footage gained believers, and how deftly it played on the ways the human brain makes distinctions between what’s true and what’s not. The complete clip of the Acosta-Trump dust-up runs two minutes and forty-three seconds, but the relevant moment comes just before the minute and a half mark, when Acosta is speaking and a White House intern appears to surprise him, approaching from the side and below (she was crouching on the floor nearby) and reaching to grab the microphone. A brief tangling of arms ensues, Acosta is heard saying, “Pardon me, Ma’am” in a level voice, and the intern withdraws. The Watson video runs 15 seconds, eliminates the context, and opts instead for an extreme close-up, repeatedly showing a moment when Acosta’s hand makes contact with the intern’s arm. Watson, [according to The Washington _Post_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/11/08/white-house-shares-doctored-video-support-punishment-journalist-jim-acosta/?utm%5Fterm=.22f5d160dc5e), calls any allegation that he edited or changed the speed of the video to make it look more abrupt or violent a “brazen lie.” But he [did admit to BuzzFeed](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/acosta-video-trump-cnn-aide-sarah-sanders) that “digitally it’s going to look a tiny bit different after processing and zooming in.” [Elizabeth Loftus](https://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/loftus/), professor of law and social psychology at the University of California Irvine, isn’t buying it. “The videos are totally different,” she says. “Somebody is pretty talented to do it that skillfully and fast. They made it look like he hit her, that he reached out his arm and made contact.” Loftus knows a thing or two about manipulated evidence and biased perceptions. An authority on human memory and its exceeding imperfections, she has been an expert witness in multiple celebrated cases, including the McMartin preschool molestation case and litigation involving Michael Jackson as well as the Duke University lacrosse players. Her [TED talk on memory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB2OegI6wvI) has garnered more than a million views. In the case of the Acosta footage, she says, the altered video leverages not just the way our perceptions of what we’re seeing can be manipulated, but the way our political biases can turbocharge those manipulations. In a [paper Loftus co-authored](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract%5Fid=2201941) in the _Journal of Experimental Social Psychology_ in 2013, she and her colleagues showed 5,296 volunteers doctored photos of five ostensible news events that did not in fact occur, and asked the volunteers if they remembered hearing about them or seeing them on the news. On average, 27% of the subjects reported that they had indeed seen the pictures — which they could not have — but the results were heavily skewed by political orientation. People who disapproved of George W. Bush, for example, were likelier to “remember” having seen a picture of him vacationing at his Texas ranch with then-Houston Astros pitcher Roger Clemens during the Hurricane Katrina disaster; he did not. People who disapproved of Barack Obama were similarly more inclined to think they recalled a picture of Obama shaking hands at the United Nations with then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That never happened either. “People are more gullible consumers of information that supports their political views than of information that challenges them,” says professor of psychological science Peter Ditto, also of the University of California, Irvine. “Psychologists call this ‘motivated reasoning.’ Trump has weaponized this basic human tendency by repeatedly offering his supporters alternative accounts of events that confirm their beliefs.” The President, in fairness, by no means invented this technique, or was the first to use it in a calculated way. Loftus has seen manipulation of memory and perception play out repeatedly in criminal trials, when witnesses are merely questioned in suggestive ways, and their stories change accordingly. “I’ve also studied suggestive psychotherapy that leads people to believe they had childhood experiences they didn’t have,” she says. Video evidence certainly can be of value both in a courtroom and in other contexts, but only if it’s used honestly. Attorney and professor [David Paul Horowitz](https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/david-horowitz), who teaches the [Electronic Evidence and Discovery Workshop](https://www.law.columbia.edu/courses/sections/23757) at Columbia University School of Law and who viewed both the original Acosta video and the one shared by Huckabee Sanders, does not think Watson’s creation would last long in a courtroom. “The objection to the White House clip would likely be that the repetitive loop of a very short clip would be prejudicial, and serve only to inflame the fact-finder,” Horowitz wrote in an email to TIME. “The objecting party would likely request that the video be replayed, in its entirety, each time the jury wanted to see it, so that the entire context of the contact would be presented.” Of course, inflaming viewers was an intended feature of the clip, not a bug. For a known purveyor of conspiracy theories to create it was bad enough, but promoting it with the full authority of the White House takes it to another level. “The possibilities,” says Ditto, “are chilling.” ## Transcript In the midterms. That this- Here we go. Well, if you don't mind, Mr. President- [ CROSSTALK ] come on. That this caravan was an invasion. As you know, Mr. President- I consider it to be an invasion. As you know, Mr. President, the caravan was not an invasion. It's a group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the US- Thank you for telling me that. I appreciate it. And why did you characterize it as such And- Cuz I consider it an invasion, you and I have a difference of opinion. But do you think that you demonized immigrants- Not at all. In this election, try to keep- No, not at all. I want them to come into the country, but they have to come in legally. They have to come in, Jim, the a process I want it to be a process, and I want people to come in, and we need the people. No- Right, your campaign, your campaign- Wait, wait, wait. You know why we need the people, don't you? Because we have hundreds of companies moving in, we need the people. Right, they're hundreds of miles away, though. They're hundreds and hundreds of miles away. You know what? That's not an invasion- I think you should, honestly Miles away, that's not an invasion. You know what, honestly? I think you should let me run the country, you run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings would be much better. Let me ask, if may ask one question. Okay, that's enough. Mr. President- That's enough. Ask one other- That's enough. The other folks- That's enough. Pardon me, ma'am, Mr. President- That's enough. Mr. President, I have one other question if I may ask on the Russian investigation, are you concerned That you may have indictments- I'm not concerned about anything with the Russian investigation because it's a hoax. That's enough, put down the mic. Mr. President, are you worried about indictments coming down in this investigation? [ CROSSTALK ] Mr. President? I'll tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude Terrible person, you shouldn't be working for CNN. Go ahead. I think that's unfair. You're a very rude person, the way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible, and the way you treat other people are horrible, you shouldn't treat people that way. Go ahead. In Jim's- Go ahead Peter, go ahead. In Jim's defense, I've traveled with him and watched him, he's a diligent reporter who busts his **** like the rest of us. Well I'm not a big fan of yours either so. I understand. So let me ask you a question if I can- You are the best. Mr. President, you repeatedly over the course- Okay, just sit down, please. When you report fake news, no, when you report fake news which CNN does a lot, you are the enemy of the people, go ahead. Mr. President, over the course Over the course of the last several days of the campaign sir. Sir at the end of the campaign you repeatedly said that Americans need to fear democrats. You said would unleash a wave of violent crime that dangers families everywhere. Why are you- Because they're very weak on crime. Why are you pitting- Excuse me. Why are you- Excuse me. Pitting americans against- Peter. One another sir? Peter, are you trying to be him? No, I'm just asking a question. Let me just tell you. Very simple, because they're very weak on crime. 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