Jim Acosta: What Happened and a Resolution

On November 7th of 2018, CNN White House Correspondent, Jim Acosta, had his White House press pass revoked after a press conference the same day. During this press conference, Acosta pushed President Donald Trump to answer a question on immigrants from Mexico coming into the United States. “In the terms that this...caravan was an invasion... and as you know Mr. President the caravan was not an invasion it’s a group of migrants moving up from central America to the border with the US... and why did you characterize it as such... but do you think that you demonized immigrants?” (Acosta)  

As this exchange took place President Donald Trump repeatedly tried to get out of the conversation and move on to the next reporter. As Jim Acosta was speaking, a White House intern tried to grab his microphone. In the process, Jim’s arm moved the intern’s arm away. Videos of this event were taken and a proved to be doctored video of the interaction was posted by Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary.  

In the doctored video the interaction between Jim and the intern looked more violent than what took place. Jim was later revoked his press pass on the term that he placed his hands on the intern and was too rough with her. “She’s young, she was shaken up, she was intimidated by what Jim Acosta did. What we are seeing is bad behavior that cannot be tolerated” (Mercedes Schlapp, White House Director of Strategic Communications) 

Since the revoking of Acosta’s press pass, the company he writes for, CNN, has sued the White House. The Defendents on the White House side include President Trump, press secretary Sarah Sanders, chief of staff John Kelly, Secret Service director Randolph Alles, deputy chief of staff for communications Bill Shine, and a Secret Service office who took away Jim Acosta’s hard pass. This comes after CNN argues that by taking away Acosta’s press pass, it is violating his first amendment rights. A judge ordered the White House to allow Jim Acosta his press pass back. 

CNN's fight wasn’t over though, as the White House sent a letter to Acosta saying that it could still ban Acosta and accused him of asking too many questions and not allowing other reporters to ask questions. CNN responded by asking a federal court to give and emergency hearing on or as close as possible to Monday November 26th 2018. CNN also replied to letter by accusing the White House of enforcing rules in press conferences that were unwritten. The White House admitted to CNN that it "does not have a written code of conduct for journalists participating in presidential press conferences." (The White House) 

As of today, November 20th, 2018, Jim Acosta was granted back his press pass by the White House as long as he follows the new officially written rules of White House Press Conferences. These new rules are “a journalist called upon to ask a question will ask a single question and then yield the floor; a follow-up question will be permitted at the discretion of the president or the White House and then the journalist must yield the floor; and "yielding the floor" includes if necessary, physically surrendering the microphone” (Sarah Sanders).