White House suspends CNN’s Jim Acosta’s press pass ‘placing his hands’ on female intern
The White House announced that CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta’s press pass has been suspended “until further notice” Wednesday, hours after he engaged in a contentious back-and-forth with President Trump.
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“I’ve just been denied entrance to the WH,” Acosta tweeted Wednesday night. “Secret Service just informed me I cannot enter the WH grounds for my 8pm hit.”
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed Acosta’s tweet in a statement, claiming the suspension of his press credentials stemmed from his “placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern.” She called the behavior “absolutely unacceptable.”
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.”
Acosta was heated during a Wednesday news conference at the White House Trump after he asked the president about the migrant caravan. Trump told Acosta to let him do his job.
“Honestly, I think you should let me run the country and you run CNN,” the president said.
The video clip below shows the interaction in question.
The issue is compounded by a doctored version from InfoWars being shared by Sanders.
Acosta posted a video to Twitter after his “hard pass” was suspended, showing a Secret Service agent removing his media credentials to access the White House grounds from a lanyard.
The interactions between Trump and Acosta have made him more of a celebrity than an unbiased journalist. In fact, recent reports are that Acosta has been signing autographs at Trump rallies:
CNN reporter Jim Acosta signed an autograph for a Trump fan at a rally Monday by writing “CNN is real news.”
In a video posted by CNN producer Matt Hoye, Jim Acosta shows off a Trump sign he autographed reading “CNN is real news.” On the other side, a Trump fan had written “CNN is fake news.”
“At last realDonaldTrump Trump rally of the season for us in Fort Wayne, Indiana Acosta got dozens of requests to sign autographs but this one cracked me up. cnn realnews,” CNN’s Matt Hoye said in a tweet.
