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Accosting Acosta: will president pay political price for banning CNN reporter?
WASHINGTON — One dramatic White House expulsion might have gotten much of the attention Thursday, but there’s been another that free-speech advocates say must not be ignored: the banning of CNN reporter Jim Acosta.
The network’s chief White House correspondent and frequent Donald Trump foil had his media pass revoked Wednesday after a remarkable 90-minute news conference in the East Room that saw the president engage in several heated exchanges with reporters, all while an aide struggled to manage their access to a wireless microphone.
Acosta was holding the microphone, trying to ask a follow-up question, while the president was calling on a different reporter. The aide tried to take it away and Acosta resisted, briefly touching her on the arm as he did.
“We will never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern,” press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a series of tweets. “The White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice.”