White House suspends credentials for CNN's Jim Acosta
The White House has suspended the
credentials of CNN's chief White House correspondent hours after a testy
exchange with US President Donald Trump.
A White House staffer tried to grab the microphone from CNN's Jim Acosta at the press conference on Wednesday.
But press secretary Sarah Sanders said access was removed because the reporter put "his hands on a young woman".
The president said the CNN journalist was a "rude, terrible person" at the press event.
What happened at the press conference?
A female staff member then attempted to take the microphone from the journalist.
"That's enough, that's enough," the president said to Mr Acosta, before telling him to sit down and to put down his microphone.
"CNN
should be ashamed of themselves, having you work for them," he said.
"The way you treat Sarah Huckabee [Sanders] is horrible."
What did the White House say?
Ms Sanders, in a statement posted in a Twitter thread, said the White House would "never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job".
"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."
The press secretary later shared a zoomed in clip of the incident, saying they "will not tolerate the inappropriate behaviour clearly documented in this video".
Mr Acosta posted a tweet saying he was stopped by the Secret Service from entering White House grounds.
What was the reaction?I’ve just been denied entrance to the WH. Secret Service just informed me I cannot enter the WH grounds for my 8pm hit— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 8, 2018
Journalists decried the move to revoke Mr Acosta's access.
CNN issued a statement on Twitter saying the ban was "in retaliation for [Jim Acosta's] challenging questions".
"In
an explanation, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders lied," it said. "She
provided fraudulent accusations and cited an incident that never
happened."
The White House Correspondents' Association - a group
that represents the press corps at the presidential residence - called
the decision "out of line" and "unacceptable".
"We urge the White House to immediately reverse this weak and misguided action."
WHCA statement on White House decision on credentials. pic.twitter.com/bukK7CGu2G— WHCA (@whca) November 8, 2018
BBC
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