A heated exchange between Trump advisor Stephen Miller and CNN speech-giver Jim Acosta over the Trump Administration’s new immigration policy has illustrated the implicit bias and ignorance of the mainstream media.

The exchange began when Acosta quoted the poem on the Statue of Liberty. The poem, Emma Lazarus’ “the New Colossus”, goes:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbour that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Acosta then told Miller:

“The Statue of Liberty has always been a beacon of hope to the world for people to send their people to this country, and they’re not always going to speak English Stephen, they’re not always going to be  highly skilled.”

Miller responded by correctly pointing out that the poem had been added to the base of the Statue of Liberty in 1903 – two decades after it had been installed, and reminded Acosta that the poem had never encapsulated US immigration policy.  He then went on to challenge Acosta on the supposed principle encapsulated by the poem:

“In 1990s, when we let in half a million people a year, was that violating or not violating the law of the land? Tell me what years meet Jim Acosta’s definition of the Statue of Liberty per law of the land. You’re saying a million a year is the Statue of Liberty number — 900,000 violates, 800,000 violates  it.”

Acosta then changed tactics by suggesting that the requirement for immigrants to speak English was racist, arguing that it would “only bring in people from Britain and Australia.” Miller responded by accusing Acosta of having a ‘cosmopolitan bias‘:

 “Jim, I just got to say, I am shocked by your statement, that you think that only people from Great  Britain and Australia would know English. It reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree that in your mind … this is an amazing moment … that you think that only people from Great Britain and Australia would speak English is so insulting to millions of hardworking immigrants that do speak  English from all over the world.”

Jim Acosta has claimed victory over Stephen Miller, commenting: “I think what you just saw in the briefing room is that he [Miller] really just couldn’t take that kind of heat and exploded before our eyes.”

However, it was Stephen Miller that won the argument. Miller remained calm, used arguments that required reason and evidence, and called out Acosta’s biases and ignorance at the appropriate moments. Miller argued using facts, Acosta argued using emotions. In the end, it is Acosta, and by extension the left-wing media, that have been shamed.