White House says correspondent no longer welcome
The White House has suspended the press pass of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta after he and President Donald Trump had a heated confrontation during a news conference yesterday.
They began sparring after Acosta asked Trump about the caravan of migrants heading from Latin America to the southern US border. When Acosta tried to follow up with another question, Trump said, “That’s enough!” and a female White House aide unsuccessfully tried to grab the microphone from Acosta.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused Acosta of “placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern”, calling it “absolutely unacceptable”.
The interaction between Acosta and the intern was brief. As she reached for the microphone, he held onto it and said, “Pardon me, ma’am.”
Acosta tweeted that Sanders’ statement that he put his hands on the aide was “a lie”. CNN said in a statement that the White House revoked Acosta’s press pass out of “retaliation for his challenging questions” yesterday, and the network accused Huckabee Sanders of lying about Acosta’s actions, saying she “provided fraudulent accusations and cited an incident that never happened”. Journalists assigned to cover the White House apply for passes that allow them daily access to press areas in the West Wing. White House staffers decide whether journalists are eligible, though the Secret Service determines whether their applications are approved.