it doesn t matter that it was unfair to him. the same argument can be made about acosta being secretary of labor. it may be unfair, his defenses may be true but it s hard to do your job. john: what s more worrisome, the fact that he said this or the fact that somehow these cables leaked and maybe there s talk that it was a hack to i think it s more worrisome that they leaked. the assessment of president trump in his administration was pretty political, critical. diplomats are paid to inform their capitals, their leaders about what they see going on in washington. but who leaked these was it just political mischief by somebody or was it a case of foreign interest trying to divide us from an ally? john: maybe we will find out. panel, thanks very much and sorry we only had one segment today. when we come back, a ticker tape parade world took cup championy with us.
only matters whatever it was persuasive to president trump, because whether secretary acosta keeps his job depends 100% on whether the president satisfied with his acclamation and if the political cost get too high, i think that it s hard for secretary acosta to depend on president trump s goodwill to keep them in the job. john: was incredible? think this is the most memorable press conference to come from the labor president trump makes his decisions often informed by media coverage so when i watched the press conference i saw cost of the lawyer taking his case, but i m not sure how well he presented that case television terms in terms of the passion or in terms of a dramatic event with maybe an apology or something like that, so i d be very interested in how president trump responds to a lot of the imagery on cable tv showing acosta and epstein in that two shot, the stills. not a good look for the administration buried john: i thought that it was very measured, he didn t get
but even acosta concedes he wasn t happy with how lenient the deal turned out to be. epstein was allowed to leave jail to go to work if he only served 13 months. when we proceeded, the expectation was that it would be an 18 month sentence in the expectation was that it would be served in jail. and so this work release was complete b.s. and i ve been on record as far back as 2011 saying that it was not what was bargained for. as for epstein s victims, were largely kept in the dark about the deal, secretary acosta insists the prosecutors in his office were trying to protect them. as she did not want to share with the victims at the office was attempting to secure for them the ability to pay monetary compensation because she is aware that if she disclosed that in the negotiations fell through, epstein s counsel would use this to question the victim s credibility. today another woman came forward accusing epstein of
flustered. he seemed fairly unflappable. he was just giving explanations and took a lot of questions, more so than his staff would have liked him to but former palm beach state attorney who acosta said was going to let epstein walk just came out on nbc news and said acosta s recollection of this is completely wrong. and he may be right, but it should not shock us and ask this table that the person who had all of the blame shifted on him that that s not right, and i think what we are going to see is the great dance of how many people can get shelved under a bus in all of this. if i did not find look, there s a reason why the reporting is accurate. there s a reason why acosta was made to give this press conference. told him today he s doing this because of donald trump. i don t think he wanted to give this press conference. i think is a good lawyer and he understood this was a bad position to be put into. i don t find his argument all that persuasive. he said there weren t enough
provide victims with the means to seek restitution and protect the public by putting them on notice that a predator was in the mixed. john: alex acosta earlier today explaining his decision to cut a secret plea deal with jeffrey epstein, the wealthy financier who is facing charges in new york city of sex trafficking. let s bring in our panel now to talk more about this in the departure of the u.k. ambassador to the united states, matthew continetti is the editor in chief of the washington free beacon, susan page, and jonah goldberg, fellow with the american enterprise institute. so acosta was there today for an hour taking questions, explaining the decision that he made, but really he was there trying to save his job. did he do an adequate job of explaining it? no apologies, no regrets, refused to address the question whether he would act differently today, blamed others, didn t take responsibility for himself, but it doesn t matter if it was persuasive to anybody else, it