The Trump administration on Monday abruptly dropped its effort to bar CNN reporter Jim Acosta from the White House, but warned he could have his credentials pulled again if he doesn’t follow guidelines governing journalists’ behavior.
The White House said reporters would be permitted one question each if called upon at news conferences and allowed follow-ups only at the discretion of the president.
In a letter to Acosta, (see full text below) White House communications director Bill Shine and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said they will be forced to reconsider the decision “if unprofessional behavior occurs.”
CNN said that, as a result, it has dropped its lawsuit against the White House filed on Acosta’s behalf.
“Thanks to everyone for their support,” Acosta tweeted. “As I said last Friday … let’s get back to work.”
The White House initially revoked Acosta’s credentials after he and Trump tangled verbally during a Nov. 7 press conference. The administration’s initial reasoning was that Acosta had manhandled a White House intern seeking to take his microphone, but that fell apart after Sanders distributed a doctored video sped up to make Acosta look more aggressive than he actually was.
Instead, the White House focused on behavior they deemed disrespectful to the president. Acosta and CNN have been frequent targets of a president who has derided coverage of his administration as “fake news” and called the media the enemy of the people.
CNN filed suit to get Acosta’s credentials restored, arguing that the action violated the constitutional right to freedom of the press and that he had been denied due process. In Washington, D.C. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly cited the due process argument last Friday in granting Acosta a two-week injunction to get back to work.
The White House initially fought back, saying it had made a preliminary decision to keep Acosta out when the two weeks were up. But after CNN requested a hearing, Shine and Sanders changed course.
“The view from here is that White House interaction with the press is, and generally should be, subject to kind of a natural give and take,” Shine and Sanders wrote. “President Trump believes strongly in the First Amendment and interacts with the press in just such a way. It would be a great loss for all if, instead of this give-and-take, and instead of relying on the professionalism of White House journalists, we were compelled to devise a lengthy and detailed code of conduct.”
Still, they did outline rules compelling journalists at news conferences to physically surrender microphones if the president hasn’t granted them a follow-up question, and said a failure to abide by these standards could result in them losing their passes.
In Acosta, the media had an imperfect First Amendment champion. Even some critics in the media world have said he occasionally seems more interested in making a point than in asking a question. In the Nov. 7 news conference, he and Trump briefly argued over the president’s contention that a group of Latin American migrants headed to the southern U.S. border represented an invasion.
Yet dozens of news organizations filed briefs supporting CNN in its case against the White House.
“We are not the enemy of the people,” Acosta tweeted Monday. “I am not your enemy. You are not my enemy. It is wrong to call your fellow Americans the enemy. We are all on the same team. We are all Americans.”
The administrations got in one last twist Monday. CNN was informed of the decision to drop the case in a letter to Acosta — delivered after his competitor, Fox News Channel’s John Roberts, tweeted the “SCOOP” that the White House would not seek to revoke his pass.
FULL TEXT of the letter sent to Acosta:
“We are writing to give you formal written notice that we have made a preliminary decision to suspend your hard pass due to your conduct at the President’s November 7, 2018 press conference. The president is aware of this preliminary decision and concurs. The factual basis for this preliminary decision to suspend your pass is as follows:
As you know, President Trump has provided and extraordinary amount of access to journalists to ask questions, while operating an extremely open and transparent White House. The White House does not have a written code of conduct for journalists participating in presidential press conferences. We had not previously thought that set of formal rules for journalists’ behavior at press conferences was necessary. That is because it had previously been a widely shared understanding that: (1) a journalist called upon to ask a question will ask a single question, and, having received a response, will yield the floor unless, at the discretion of the President or other White House official answering questions, a follow-up question or questions is permitted, after which follow-up(s), the journalist will then yield the floor; and (2) when a journalist has had his or her question(s) answered, the journalist is expected to yield the floor and, when applicable, physically surrender any microphone the journalist is using to White House staff for use by the next questioner. Three basic, commonsense practices are necessary for orderly press conferences that are fair to all journalists in attendance. They have served the public, the press, and the President well.
Your behavior at a November 7 press conference violated the basic standards governing such events, and is, in our preliminary judgment, sufficient factual basis to revoke your hard pass. While this is our preliminary decision, we would be pleased to consider any material you would like to submit in response to it.”Should you wish to contest this preliminary decision or the factual basis set forth in this letter, please submit a written response to us in writing via email by 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 18, 2018. Should you not submit a response by that time, this preliminary decision will [be] final. You may submit that response by emailing it to one or both of us. We are happy to consider that response and any other materials you would like to submit before a final decision is made in this matter. Should you choose to contest this preliminary decision and submit a written response to this formal notice, we will consider your written response and will issue you a final determination in writing 3:00 p.m. on Monday, November 19, 2018. Of course, you will continue to maintain your hard pass while the Temporary Restraining Order issued on November 16, 2018, remains in effect.”
(AP)
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13 Responses
They finally found something they think they can “handle”, they have bungled North Korea, Iran, tariffs, immigration. But they know how to bully and want to attack the first amendment.
Don the Con and lyin Sarah have to learn that in a democracy you can’t just silence your critics by framing them and violating their rights. Drumpf admires those that use tyrannical force to silence their critics. He admires Putin. He is in love with Kim and he couldn’t care less about what Bin Salman did to Khasshoggi but America is greater than the small petulant child who occupies the oval office and tweets obscenities at members of Congress while claiming that “people have to behave”.
I’m not a big fan of Acosta’s aggressive questioning but even less enamored of a WH that consistently lies and tells you to ignore what you are actually seeing or contradicting accepted fact. Trying to shout a follow up question to a response that totally ignores the original question is essential but in this case, Acosta could have handled the “microphone conflict” more discretly (especially when there is a young WH intern trying to follow directives of the President). They should try and codify some rules of procedure, developed with inputs from the WH Correspondents Association, and administer those rules with provisions for appeal. In this case its has become all about one reporter.
Trump is the first President to fear tough questions from reporters doing their jobs. He much prefers appearing on Hannity or Faux and friends where they actuall help by feeding him the answers to their softball questions.
More ‘decorum’ is needed says the president. Just yesterday he was purposely mispronouncing Rep Shiffs name as a means of calling him feces. Yea, he’s an expert in decorum.
Frankly I feel very sad for the folks who buy his chronic lying, and rudeness while rationalizing the presidents behavior.
YWN has officially joined the AXIS of EVIL LEFT
This site has become the new platform for misguided hashkofos to propagate all over for eternity.
Very shameful!!
Amil.
The prez actually pronounced his name correctly… Schiff, the yiddle mit’n fiddle, does’t earn my tax dollars pay…. He’s only obsessed with hounding the prez, investigating, litigating, threatening subpeonas , but no real work..
Amil, what would you call somebody who was willing to get nude photos of yourself from a fake news org. to rake you over the coals ? That IS what Rep. S did to our prez… Remember??
y2r, Does the fact that Yeshiva World carried a factual news story make it a platform for anything other than news?
y2r when they started this site they were thinking of calling it daastorah.com imagine how ironic that name would be
Y2$ and LBJ…..if you want “all Trumpkopf, all the time” than subscribe to Breitbart or Infowars or the new Fox Plus Website featuring Hannity, Dobbs and all the regular Trumpkopf Groupies (without the depressing truthful interruptions from their real reporters like Mike Wallace and Shepard Smith.
Dass torah does not contemplate the type of vulgarities and lies spewed forth constantly by this President. Moving the embassy from Tel Aviv does not make the Trumpkopf an ohev Yisroel when the invited Evangelical speakers at the Embassy opening openly speak of their wish for Armageddon where yidden go up in flames so their “moishiach” will come.
I watched the whole press conference. Trump isnt calling a press conference to be instructed, but to provide the media with information about his own thoughts and plans. Trump takes a constant barrage of hostility from the press, who are all committed to their own personal agendas to rid the world of “evil” conservatism and replace it with the “good” of liberalism and/or leftism. Given that, most of the reporters try at least to some extent to keep to their supposed role as”fact-finders” and “investigators,” and resist using a question to the President as a chance to draw attention to themselves, and to preach their own viewpoints. Some do definitely start preaching, or “instructing” Trump, but at least they realize they cant just keep going on and on when it is no longer their turn. Acosta, on the other hand, instead of asking and investigating (as is supposedly the role of a reporter), uses the microphone to preach his own viewpoint and “instruct” Trump, AND he then refuses to relinquish the mike when his time is up, obviously basking in his self-appointed role as Trump’s #1 Media Nemesis. Thats why Trump told him to let him run the country, and stick to running CNN. Acosta’s attitude is “Let me tell you what you should think.” Its rude, disrespectful and I dont blame Trump for getting angry at his rudeness.
Yaakov Doe, Trump doesn’t fear questions from the Press. He fielded plenty of hard questions from reporters who hate his guts, and generally his answers were honest. A press conference is not the place to debate political viewpoints! The job of a reporter is not to “stand up” to what he dislikes or disagrees with from the President’s statements. If he wants to disagree, let him write an editorial for CNN. All of CNN is now anti-Trump editorial…very little factual reporting that isn’t emotionally biased against anything that the administration does. What we all forget is that the liberal mainstream media was almost as uniformly hostile to George W Bush. That was when liberalism really became inextricably entwined with leftism…and any political viewpoints not adhering to what is deemed acceptable by the left is angrily denounced and smeared with angry hatred. Listen to the press conference again, and you feel the drumbeat of hatred coming —NOT from Trump—but from the reporters. That’s why Trump says what he says at the end. I empathize with him 100%. I WISH they were just “doing their jobs…” -!
Where to begin…
Obama hardly gave pressers, cut reporters short, rarely took follow ups..
All kind of garbage mouths appear on CNN & ilk, spew their stuff without challenges from the hosts, without being challenged on their “facts” , yet Trump isn’t allowed to appear with Hannity & Co. .. So he gets a warmer forum, and the TDS’ers gnash their false teeth.
What else? Lemme see….. Oh… Get a load of this……
..”… he couldn’t care less about what Bin Salman did to Khasshoggi ….” LOLOLOLOl…… Good for him… You care for him ???? I don’t..!!
He was a Muslim Brotherhood thug who eschewed reform in Saudi Arabia and wanted Israel off the map..
I’m glad one less rabid Muslim fanatic is outta here… Hey crazyk…. What were you & ilk doing when Saudis & Iranians chopped off heads & fingers, whipped women in public, imprisoned innocents? Where were you big shot??
Gurgling on kosher slivovitz & hamentaschen?
Insane, I tell ya…