President Donald Trump continued on Monday what is becoming a tradition at his daily coronavirus press conference: lacing into White House reporters.
At his Monday presser in the Rose Garden, Trump selected CNN’s Jim Acosta for a question. The CNN senior White House correspondent asked Trump about his previous comments downplaying the threat of the coronavirus.
“What do you say to Americans who believe that you got this wrong?” Acosta asked.
Trump defended his past statements, claiming they were “all true” and the product of his efforts to “keep the country calm.”
The president then dropped an odd claim: “I don’t want panic in the country. I could cause panic much better than even you. I would make you look like a minor league player. But you know what? I don’t want to do that. I want to have our country be calm and strong and fight and win and it will go away.”
Trump then started attacking CNN for Acosta’s question, which he deemed “nasty” and “snarky.” (He would, later in the press conference, call a question from PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor as “snarky” as well.)
President Donald Trump snapped at CNN reporter Jim Acosta for asking about the White House’s own officials who contradict what the president says about the coronavirus.
“What do you say to Americans who are concerned that you’re not taking this seriously enough and that some of your statements don’t match what your health experts are saying?” asked Acosta.
“That’s CNN. Fake news,” Trump dismissed the question.
Trump was speaking after a meeting with Wall Street bank CEOs, which happened as the Dow Jones hit “bear market” territory at its close Wednesday. He took a few questions from the press during the photo opportunity, and Acosta asked the question. Trump was furious and kicked the press out.
“Tried to ask Trump to respond to Americans who are concerned he’s not taking situation seriously enough and that his statements don’t match what health experts are saying. He did not answer the question,” tweeted Acosta.
Tried to ask Trump to respond to Americans who are concerned he's not taking situation seriously enough and that his statements don't match what health experts are saying. He did not answer the question.
CNN's Jim Acosta: "What do you say to Americans who are concerned that you're not taking this seriously enough and that some of your statements don't match what your health experts are saying?"
Judge Timothy J. Kelly ordered, on Friday, that Acosta’s “hard pass” be returned immediately. Kelly found that Acosta’s First Amendment rights superseded the White House’s right to hold orderly press conferences.
The ruling only represented a temporary “victory” for CNN and Acosta according to Stelter’s reporting (emphasis his):
After CNN won a temporary restraining order on Friday, forcing the White House to restore his press pass for 14 days, White House officials sent Acosta a letter stating that his pass is set to be suspended again once the restraining order expires.
From the looks of the letter, the W.H. is trying to establish a paper trail that will empower the administration to boot Acosta again at the end of the month.
CNN responded with this statement on Sunday: “The White House is continuing to violate the First and 5th Amendments of the Constitution. These actions threaten all journalists and news organizations. Jim Acosta and CNN will continue to report the news about the White House and the President.”
Acosta’s press credential had been revoked, reportedly at the direction of President Donald Trump, after a contentious White House press conference in which the CNN reporter persisted in asking follow-up questions and refused to give up a microphone despite Trump’s direction.
Supporters of Trump’s banning of Acosta believe that his disruptive behavior flouted accepted standards of White House decorum, while CNN and Acosta supporters point out disruptive questions are a time-honored journalist tradition. Or put another way, “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations.”
So it seems the ongoing war over First Amendment rights versus accepted standards of behavior will feature another battle, which will bring another distracting topic for cable news pundits to discuss at length. It’s almost as its a designed distraction from stories that paint the Trump administration in a less than flattering light?
UPDATE: CNN has responded by filed a status report asking for the Court to intervene. BuzzFeed News’ Zoe Tillman reports:
NEW: CNN has filed a status report asking the court to once again intervene after the White House told Jim Acosta late Friday that it had made the "preliminary decision" to suspend his hard pass, notwithstanding the judge's TRO that morning https://t.co/ndlT2WPSVhpic.twitter.com/ZvdMG4rEAS
Sarah Huckabee Sanders took another shot at CNN’s Jim Acosta tonight in an interview on Hannity with… Mike Huckabee.
The White House Press Secretary’s father began the interview by asking her about the protocol for decorum being worked on after the judge’s ruling in Acosta’s favor today.
Sanders said the White House supports a free press, but added that “freedom of the press doesn’t mean freedom to be disruptive, freedom to be rude, freedom to interrupt.”
She claimed that they sent CNN a letter tonight laying out “what we think were some of the missteps that their reporter made at the press conference… and we expect to see a response from that.”
In an interview today, the President himself said, after the ruling, if Acosta “misbehaves” they’ll throw him out again. And Sanders said they don’t want reporters to be “disruptive” and impede anyone’s ability to do their jobs.
When her father asked her about the protocol put in place, Sanders said there are “standard practices” they want addressed, and that “the very basic minimum is that if certain reporters like Jim Acosta can’t be adults, then CNN needs to send somebody in there who can be.”
President Trump brushed off a federal judge’s Friday ruling that the White House must reinstate press credentials for Jim Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent.
The president also said during an interview set to air on “Fox News Sunday” that if Acosta “misbehaves” at a future press conference the White House could “throw him out.”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not a big deal,” Trump told Fox News’s Chris Wallace when asked about the ruling Friday to reinstate Acosta’s press pass after it was revoked last week.
“What they said though is that we have to create rules and regulations for conduct, etc., etc. We’re doing that, were going to write them up right now,” Trump continued. “It’s not a big deal. And if he misbehaves, we’ll throw him out or we’ll stop the news conference.”
The White House stripped Acosta of his press pass last week following a fiery exchange with the president during a press conference, with the CNN reporter holding on to the microphone to continue asking questions when an intern attempted to take it away.
“We had a lot of reporters in that room, many, many reporters in that room and they were unable to ask questions because this guy gets up and starts you know doing what he’s supposed to be doing for him and for CNN and you know just shouting out questions and making statements, too,” Trump said Friday.
“But I will say this, look, nobody believes in the First Amendment more than I do, and if I think somebody is acting out of sorts, I will leave. I will say, ‘thank you very much everybody, I appreciate you coming,’ and I’ll leave,” he added.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, who was appointed to the bench by Trump, ordered the White House on Friday to restore Acosta’s press pass, giving him regular access to the White House grounds to cover events and press conferences.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the administration would abide by the judge’s ruling, but staff “will also further develop rules and processes to ensure fair and orderly press conferences in the future.”
Kelly argued in his ruling that the White House violated Acosta and CNN’s Fifth Amendment rights to due process by kicking Acosta out, but did not say their First Amendment rights to free speech were infringed.
Trump and Acosta engaged in a tense exchange during the televised press conference last week after the reporter pushed Trump on his comments criticizing a group of Central American migrants making their way to the U.S.-Mexico border.
As Acosta continued to press the president, a White House intern attempted to take the microphone away. Acosta did not let go, with his hand brushing against the intern.
After the press conference, Sanders accused Acosta of “placing his hands” on the intern and cited the incident as the reason for why his media access was being revoked.
In court Friday, Kelly said the White House’s characterization was likely untrue.
Acosta and CNN argued that the press pass was revoked because the administration didn’t like the questions Acosta asked.
President Donald Trump claimed on Friday that a White House-released video depicting contact between a staffer and a CNN reporter wasn’t altered, and he seemingly threatened to revoke the White House press credentials of more reporters.
Trump insisted that the video distributed by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was simply a “close-up” and “was not doctored.”
“Nobody manipulated it. All that is is a close-up,” said the president, who then attacked the reporter for asking the question and called him “dishonest.”
A frame-by-frame comparison with an Associated Press video of the same incident from Trump’s postelection news conference Wednesday shows that the video tweeted by Sanders appears to speed up CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s arm movement when he makes contact with a White House intern who was trying to take away Acosta’s microphone. The speedup appears to make the gesture more threatening.
Trump, in remarks Friday, also did not back off his administration’s decision to suspend Acosta’s press credential, which allows the CNN correspondent access to the White House grounds.
“He’s a very unprofessional guy. I don’t think he’s a smart person but he has a loud voice,” Trump told reporters in a testy 20-plus-minute exchange before he left for Paris and a World War I commemoration ceremony. “You have to treat the White House with respect. You have to treat the presidency with respect.”
The president said he had not decided if Acosta’s pass would be reinstated and he suggested there “could be others” who lose their credentials. He belittled several of the reporters gathered around him. He said one had asked “a stupid question,” and he singled out April Ryan, a correspondent for Urban Radio Networks, calling her “very nasty” and “a loser.”
Ryan, who is also a CNN contributor, tweeted in response: “I love this country and have the most respect for the Office of the President. I will continue to ask the questions that affect America, all of America.”
Trump’s latest attacks on the media came in the wake of his free-wheeling and contentious news conference two days earlier, and followed demands by several journalists and organizations — including the American Society of News Editors, the Associated Press Media Editors and the White House Correspondents Association — that Acosta’s press pass be reinstated.
“It is the essential function of a free press in every democracy to independently gather and report information in the public interest, a right that is enshrined in the First Amendment,” said Julie Pace, AP’s Washington bureau chief. “We strongly reject the idea that any administration would block a journalist’s access to the White House.”
The New York Times editorialized in favor of restoring Acosta’s pass, saying it signaled Trump’s view that asking hard questions disqualifies reporters from attending briefings. The newspaper said that if Sanders was so offended by physical contact, “what did she have to say when her boss praised as ‘my kind of guy’ Rep. Greg Gianforte of Montana, who was sentenced to anger management classes and community service for body-slamming a Guardian reporter last spring?”
It’s rare for the White House to pull the media credentials.
During Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, the Secret Service denied clearance to Robert Sherrill, a reporter for The Nation who had gotten into physical fights with government officials. During the George W. Bush presidency, Trude Feldman, who worked for various news outlets, was suspended for 90 days after security cameras recorded her looking through a press aide’s desk late one night. In the 1970s, President Richard Nixon tried to get Washington Post reporters banned from the White House.
Despite losing his White House pass, Acosta traveled to Paris this weekend to cover Trump’s trip to meet with world leaders. He tweeted a photo of himself standing in front of the Eiffel Tower early Friday.
Abba Shapiro, an independent video producer who examined the Wednesday footage at AP’s request, noticed that frames in the tweeted video of the exchange at the news conference were frozen to slow down the action, allowing it to run the same length as the AP one.
Sanders, who hasn’t said where the tweeted video came from, noted that it clearly shows Acosta made contact with the intern. In her statement announcing Acosta’s suspension, she said the White House won’t tolerate “a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job.”
While the origin of the manipulated video is unclear, its distribution marked a new low for an administration that has been criticized for its willingness to mislead.
CNN has labeled Sanders’ characterization of Acosta’s exchange with the intern as a lie. Its position has been supported by witnesses, including Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason, who was next to Acosta during the news conference and tweeted that he did not see Acosta place his hands on the White House employee. Rather, Mason said he saw Acosta holding on to the microphone as the intern reached for it.
President Donald Trump ripped Jim Acosta on Friday, after the CNN chief White House correspondent had his press pass suspended over false allegations he acted inappropriately with an intern.
“I think Jim Acosta’s a very unprofessional man,” Trump said. “He does this with everybody. He gets paid to do that, you know he gets paid to burst in. He’s a very unprofessional guy, whether it’s me or Ronald Reagan or anybody else, he would’ve done the same thing. I don’t think he’s a smart person, but he’s got a loud voice.”
Trump said he hasn’t made a decision on the fate of Acosta’s press credentials, adding “there could be others also” that could lose their access.
“This is a very sacred place, this is a very special place,” Trump continued. “You have to treat the White House with respect. You have to treat the presidency with respect.”
Trump called Acosta a “disgrace,” before turning his ire towards another White House reporter, April Ryan.
“You talk about somebody that’s a loser, she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing,” Trump said. “She gets publicity, and then she gets a pay raise, or she gets a contract with, I think CNN.
“But she’s very nasty and she shouldn’t be,” he added.
Trump: "The same thing with April Ryan…You talk about somebody that's a loser. She doesn't know what the hell she's doing…She's very nasty, and she shouldn't be."
– The president of the United States attacking a black reporter for doing her job pic.twitter.com/9UMw8jnih9
The White House is accused of using a video of CNN’s Jim Acosta doctored by the conspiracy-theory outlet Infowars as justification for suspending the journalist’s press pass on Wednesday.
Acosta, the chief White House correspondent for CNN, was engaged in a tense exchange with President Donald Trump during a press conference at the White House when a White House intern walked up and tried to take the microphone away from him. Acosta held on to the microphone and kept trying to question Trump.
Acosta was holding the microphone in his right hand. At one point, the intern reached under Acosta’s left arm to try to grab the microphone, and he appeared to gently block her with his arm. Here is the moment as broadcast live on NBC:
A video shared on Twitter by the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, however, makes Acosta’s movement appear more violent.
We stand by our decision to revoke this individual’s hard pass. We will not tolerate the inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video. pic.twitter.com/T8X1Ng912y
What appears to be the same video was shared two hours earlier by Paul Joseph Watson, the editor-at-large of Infowars.com, a far-right conspiracy outlet whose content has been barred from almost every major tech content distributor, including Apple, Facebook, Spotify, and YouTube, generally for violating their policies on hate speech.
"He never once touched her."
That is a complete lie. He clearly did.
Is whatever you're paid by CNN really worth making a total fool out of yourself for the world to see? pic.twitter.com/vgDynDQWJf
The CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter asked Sanders for the source of the video. “Surely you don’t trust InfoWars…?” he said on Twitter.
Question for @PressSec: Where'd you obtain the distorted @Acosta video you posted? InfoWars personality @PrisonPlanet posted the same video two hours before you did. Surely you don't trust InfoWars…?
Other Twitter users showed Sanders’ video side-by-side with the original broadcast to argue the one she posted had been doctored.
Further analysis: video is absolutely doctored. You can see the edit when the clips are side by side and slowed down to quarter speed. See for yourself: pic.twitter.com/4ZZrzhislg
The White House suspended Acosta’s press credentials after the press conference, limiting his access to the White House grounds. Sanders said on Twitter that the White House would “never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern,” though no video evidence has so far supported that claim.
The White House has suspended the credentials of a CNN journalist hours after a testy exchange with US President Donald Trump.
Press secretary Sarah Sanders says a reporter’s access was removed because he put “his hands on a young woman”.
Mr Acosta, chief White House correspondent for CNN, was called a “rude, terrible person” by Mr Trump at a press conference on Wednesday.
A staff member tried to take his microphone during the exchange.
However, Mr Acosta refused to give it up as he attempted to ask the president a further question.
Video of the incident quickly appeared online.
What did the White House say?
Ms Sanders, in a statement posted in a Twitter thread, said the White House would “never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job”.
“The fact that CNN is proud of the way their employee behaved is not only disgusting, it’s an example of their outrageous disregard for everyone, including young women, who work in this Administration,” she said.
“As a result of today’s incident, the White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice.”
White House aide grabs and tries to physically remove a microphone from CNN Correspondent Jim Acosta during a contentious exchange with President Trump at a news conference. https://t.co/jqIrScUeftpic.twitter.com/BUaaQDOoOF
Donald Trump has launched an extraordinary tirade against a reporter during a press conference following the midterm elections.
The US president ordered the journalist to put down his microphone and “just sit down”.
The row began following a question about the migrant caravan approaching the US, when Mr Trump was asked by CNN’s Jim Acosta if he thought he had “demonised” migrants by calling the group an “invasion”.
“I think you should let me run the country, you run CNN, and if you did it well, your ratings would be much better,” the Republican said.
After Mr Acosta attempted to follow up his question with a second on Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, Mr Trump added, pointing angrily: “That’s enough. That’s enough. That’s enough. Excuse me, that’s enough.”
Mr Trump said he was “not concerned about anything” because the investigation was “a hoax”.
Continuing to berate Mr Acosta, he added: “That’s enough. Put down the mic.”
Mr Acosta was seen to tussle with a female White House aide who was trying to retrieve the microphone.
As the reporter continued to quiz him and interrupt him, Mr Trump became more agitated and stepped away from the podium. Mr Acosta then sat down.
Returning to the podium, Mr Trump said: “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.
“The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible and the way you treat other people are horrible. You shouldn’t treat people that way.”
A second reporter, Peter Alexander, was called on by the president and said: “In Jim’s defence I’ve travelled with him a lot, he’s a diligent reporter.”
Mr Trump cut him off, telling the NBC News journalist that “I’m not a big fan of yours either”, prompting laughter in the room.
Mr Acosta continued to try to ask questions without his microphone, causing Mr Trump to tell him: “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.”
Mr Trump appeared to be in a sour mood following the Democrats’ capture of the House of Representatives last night, though he talked up the Republicans’ gain of at least two seats in the Senate.
But he mocked a number of losing Republican candidates who did not campaign for him. “Those are some of the people who decided for their own reason not to embrace – whether it’s me or what we stand for,” he said.
“They did very poorly. I’m not sure that I should be happy or sad but I feel just fine about it.”
Mr Trump clashed with a series of reporters during the testy, 90-minute press conference, as journalists frequently spoke over him and each other when trying to raise their questions.
Asked repeatedly by a Yahoo! News reporter about alleged racist comments – which he strongly denied – Mr Trump said: “Quiet. Quiet. See, when you talk about division [in America], it’s people like this that cause division, great division.
“Point of fact is I never used a racist remark, that’s the point of fact. Who are you from? Yahoo? Oh, good. I hope they’re doing well.”
Mr Trump’s infrequent set-piece press conferences tend to address a huge range of topics as reporters try to press the president on any and all issues. Their rarity increases the pressure on journalists to get answers.
