CNN's Jim Acosta Banned From TWH TFN

President Trump took the exceedingly rare step of suspending the White House credentials of Jim Acosta, the chief White House correspondent for CNN, on Wednesday after an intense verbal clash at a news conference earlier in the day, reports The NYTimes.

During a testy session with reporters, Trump recognized Mr. Acosta for a question. Their exchange grew heated when Acosta repeatedly challenged the president’s characterization of a Central American migrant caravan as an invasion. Trump responded by lashing out at Mr. Acosta, saying, “Honestly, I think you should let me run the country — you run CNN.”

Mr. Acosta, who was in the front row just feet from the president, refused several times to sit down or to return a microphone to a White House intern who sought to retrieve it. When he finally did give up the microphone, Mr. Trump said that Mr. Acosta was “a rude, terrible person.”

“You shouldn’t be working for CNN,” the president said.

When Mr. Acosta tried to re-enter the White House on Wednesday evening for a live shot for his network, a Secret Service officer asked him to hand over his “hard pass,” which grants journalists access to the compound. Mr. Acosta captured the episode in a grainy video on his cellphone and posted it to Twitter.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, who has also repeatedly clashed with Mr. Acosta during televised briefings at the White House, announced the decision, claiming falsely that Mr. Acosta had placed “his hands on a young woman” who was responsible for giving the microphone to reporters asking questions.

“The fact that CNN is proud of the way their employee behaved is not only disgusting, it is an example of their outrageous disregard for everyone, including young women, who work in this administration,” Sanders said.

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The confrontation with the president came during a fractious encounter with reporters, only the third formal solo news conference held by Trump at the White House. In addition to clashing with Acosta, he scolded several other reporters he deemed offensive, including Peter Alexander of NBC, April D. Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks and Yamiche Alcindor of PBS.



The decision to yank Acosta’s credentials, effectively denying him access to the White House and the president’s staff, was a nuclear-level response by the president and the administration’s communications staff after more than two years of escalating tensions between the CNN correspondent, the president and the president’s aides.