CNN Suing Donald Trump Over Jim Acosta Ban, Can They Win?
CNN Suing Donald Trump Over Jim Acosta Ban, Can They Win?Jim Acosta had his press access revoked after years of confrontational and disruptive behavior that has been called out numerous times by mainstream reporters. The final straw was when he got, lightly, physical with a White House intern over a microphone.The left is calling this an attack on the press while the right is saying its about time Acosta got removed over intentionally trying to make the story about himself.Trump called Acosta rude and called out CNN over his repeated behavior. In the past year we have seen The Washington post, The Atlantic, and even MSNBC call out Jim Acosta.
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CNN has announced it is suing Donald Trump and several White House aides over revoking Jim Acosta's press pass.
And this stems from that famous moment not too long ago where Jim Acosta refused to give up the microphone to the intern who was trying to take it away.
Some people say she yanked it from him.
Others say that he tried using his left arm to push her away.
And I am of the opinion Jim Acosta did try pushing her away with his left arm.
And the reason why I believe this is that you can see her get pulled off balance.
But this video is not about rehashing that debate.
This video is about the lawsuit and whether or not there is merit to it.
Now, on a surface level, I personally believe Jim Acosta should be removed from these briefings.
He should have his press pass revoked.
Because it's not just this one incident where he stands up and talks for nearly three minutes arguing with Trump.
It's that over the past couple years, he has been called out repeatedly.
MSNBC called him out.
Washington Post called him out.
The Atlantic called him out.
When other journalists are saying what he is doing is wrong and it's dangerous, I think it's fair to say Jim Acosta either needs to stop or he needs to be removed.
But I'm not a lawyer.
I don't know if there's merit to this lawsuit, so I brought in Will Chamberlain, who is a lawyer today, Let's take a look at the breaking news, talk with Will, and figure out is there actually merit to the suit, and will Jim Acosta actually get his press pass back?
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From CNBC, CNN sues President Trump and White House for banning reporter Jim Acosta.
In a statement, Sanders said the lawsuit was just more grandstanding from CNN and vowed that the White House will vigorously defend itself.
CNN alleges in its legal action, which has been filed in U.S.
District Court in Washington, D.C., that Acosta's First and Fifth Amendment rights were being violated with the ban.
Acosta, who has frequently clashed with the Trump administration officials, had challenged the president about his characterization of a caravan of Central American migrants traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border.
A female staffer then attempted to pull the microphone out from Acosta's hand, which he initially refused to surrender.
You're a rude, terrible person, Trump responded as Acosta continued to speak into a microphone being passed around to the gaggle of reporters present for the news conference in the White House.
CNN is asking the court for a preliminary injunction that would reinstate Acosta's press credentials as soon as possible.
While the suit is specific to CNN and Acosta, this could have happened to anyone, CNN said in a statement Tuesday morning.
If left unchallenged, the actions of the White House would create a dangerous chilling effect for any journalist who covers our elected officials.
But it isn't about this one event.
Acosta has been called out numerous times.
People have called for pulling his press pass months ago.
So, to understand whether or not this lawsuit has any merit, I brought in Will Chamberlain, who is a Trump supporter.
He is a conservative, but he's also a lawyer, so he's gonna shed some light on whether or not Jim Acosta could actually get his press credentials back.
Circuit called Sherrill v. Knight, which is directly on point.
A columnist for The Nation had their White House press pass revoked for quote-unquote security reasons that were very vague from the Secret Service.
The District Court held that the The Secret Service needed to come up with specific and narrow standards for the revoking of press passes because to do otherwise was a violation of the journalist's First Amendment rights.
And the D.C.
Circuit basically affirmed that, saying that unless there's a compelling reason that there is a First Amendment right for White House correspondents to have access to the press facilities.
So there is some merit to this.
That said, based on Jim Acosta's behavior, there actually is some compelling reason
to exclude him from the White House briefing room because he was physical with a aide to the president,
with one of the White House interns.
He can say in the complaint, they try to say that the video was doctored,
that he was simply holding onto his microphone, but we've all seen the video,
and it seems very clear that he physically tried to maintain control of the microphone
by pushing on the arm of one of the White House aides.
And so even if Mr. Acosta and CNN are able to win the argument
that this was somewhat arbitrary, that there wasn't due process here,
ultimately I think that the White House will be able to show that they had a compelling reason
to take away his press pass because he was being physical with aides.
Acosta has been what I would call a debater rather than a journalist for a while.
Like, he's not going in there actually trying to ask questions and get answers so much as start an argument.
But that said, that's First Amendment speech, and it's hard to say that that's sufficient reason in and of itself to remove him and to deny him a White House press pass, given that there probably are legitimate First Amendment considerations at play.
I think it's really, it's the rudeness and the lack of, and the physical disrespect for aides that strikes me as a reason.
I mean, think about it from the White House and from even President Trump's perspective.
Acosta was very, very rude and physical with one of his employees.
I think part of showing respect for your own employees is having their back.
And when your employee is both kind of handled and almost humiliated when
they're essentially one of the reporters refuses to hand over a microphone and
pushes them away.
Whether or not that's acceptable behavior and whether or not you stand by your employees.
I think ultimately that's what this will come down to.
And I think that's why at the end of the day, a costume won't be getting his press pass back.
I think they're gonna lose the lawsuit eventually.
I think what'll end up happening.
They have a good argument Acosta has a good argument that There were some due process problems in the sense that this case, this DC Circuit case, Cheryl v. Knight, says that if you're going to take away somebody's press pass, you need to give them notice, an opportunity to be heard, and a written opinion, or a written decision.
So you have to give them a chance to respond.
I don't think that was done here.
And if there is a due process right, then it's pretty clear that whatever Sarah Sanders did and whatever the Secret Service did, it wasn't enough.
They never gave Acosta a chance to respond.
They never gave them a written opinion specifically laying out the reasons they were denying him the press pass.
But that's just a procedural flaw, right?
Like, so, if a court says, well, you didn't do this right procedurally, what'll happen is, it'll go back to the Secret Service.
They'll suddenly say, we're revoking your press pass, Jim Acosta, for reasons one, two, and three.
You now have a chance to be heard.
He can respond, and then they can give a final decision that says, we're still revoking your press pass, Jim Acosta, because you put your hands on that woman.
Like, winning this procedural argument doesn't ultimately get his press pass back.
He'll have to prove that It was unconstitutional, a violation of the First Amendment, substantively, to take away the press pass.
And I don't think he's going to be able to win that argument because he ultimately was physical with the White House aide, which seems like a perfectly good reason to take away somebody's press pass.
So again, keeping in mind that Will is a conservative, I think he was pretty fair, and I trust his opinion on the matter.
But I want to talk about all of the times Jim Acosta has been called out by mainstream media journalists, personalities, and even the left for grandstanding.
Obviously, the right is critical of Jim Acosta.
So we'll look at those stories, and then we'll move to when the left called him out.
Newsweek reported June 12th, Trump's campaign manager wants CNN reporters' credentials revoked over questions during North Korea signing.
And this was specific to when Trump and Kim Jong-un were signing documents, Jim Acosta yelled things.
He was yelling questions.
And I would argue that it may be inappropriate to yell while a signing is happening.
It is still within his First Amendment rights.
As a journalist, he's going to yell questions whether they're inappropriate or not.
This story from the Western Journal says, Hot Mike reveals Acosta outburst was intentional Malicious, and this is in response to what happened in North Korea.
Naturally, The Blaze wrote about it, saying Jim Acosta is getting criticized for what he did at the Trump-Kim summit.
But it's not just about outbursts, it's about other bad behavior.
In October, The Hill reported CNN's Acosta sends private message to former Melania Trump aide, F.U.
This was in response to the aide saying, Dear Diary, to Jim Acosta.
Now, Dear Diary is an insult that is insinuating Jim Acosta is making all of these stories about him and his personal experience instead of reporting.
But obviously, Obviously the right is going to call out Jim Acosta because he's challenging Donald Trump, right?
But what about all the times the mainstream press has called out Jim Acosta?
How about this story from the Washington Post?
CNN's Acosta walks a fine line with Trump.
They go on to say that Acosta's remarks aren't just blunt, they're unusual.
Reporters are supposed to report, not opine.
Yet Acosta's disdain has flowed openly, raising a question about how far a reporter, supposedly a neutral arbiter of facts, not a commenter on them, can and should go.
How about when The Atlantic wrote, Or over a year ago, when we saw this story from the Washington Examiner.
CNN insiders rip Jim Acosta's antics as auditions for his own show.
One of Acosta's colleagues, an on-air conservative political commentator for CNN, said he sees an ulterior motive in Acosta's actions.
He said Acosta's widely noticed clashes with the White House give the impression that he wants a
new role at the network. Quote, he's angling to host an opinion show, he said. These White House
briefings are his auditions. Another CNN employee in Washington, D.C. made it clear that Acosta's
outbursts aren't as popular behind the scenes as CNN sometimes makes them out to be on air. Ugh.
Just ugh, a producer told the Washington Examiner when asked about Acosta.
We even have Joe Scarborough ripping CNN's Jim Acosta like something out of Mein Kampf.
Morning Joe host, Joe Scarborough slammed CNN's Jim Acosta on Thursday morning, saying his actions toward senior White House advisor Stephen Miller during Wednesday's White House press briefing were like something out of Mein Kampf.
How about when Stephen Colbert rips Jim Acosta for combative Trump exchange?
We get it.
You're woke.
Even Stephen Colbert is calling out Jim Acosta.
Then we have Steve Krakauer, who is a former digital producer for CNN, saying, Jim Acosta's self-serving antics give all good journalists a bad name.
He went on to say, On a day journalists could honor the memory of fellow
reporters tragically killed due to a deranged person with a vendetta going back years, Acosta
tries to shift the blame to Trump, thus validating many Americans' feelings about
the Acela media that existed long before Trump.
Jim Acosta has engaged in obvious baiting of Trump to create controversy.
He wants to get Trump angry so that Trump will have a back and forth, and then Jim Acosta can play the victim.
He constantly talks about himself, and in my opinion, he is disrupting these briefings for everyone else.
He's not the only journalist in the room.
One of the most frustrating things to me about the whole fiasco Is that people keep saying he's doing his job?
Sure!
But speaking for three minutes and arguing with Trump and refusing to give up a microphone is disrespectful to all of the other journalists who are trying to get questions in as well.
Jim Acosta isn't the only person in the room, and that's why you see so many other outlets calling him out.
The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and even Joe Scarborough of MSNBC calling Jim Acosta out.
And I gotta say, When Stephen Colbert makes a joke at the expense of Jim Acosta, even jokingly calling him fake news CNN's Jim Acosta, you've got someone with a real problem who's causing problems and he's being disruptive.
Does that mean he should have his press credentials revoked?
Well, I'm not the lawyer, you heard from Will, and I think what he says has merit.
So it sounds to me like Jim Acosta is not going to be coming back into these press briefings.
And look, you can't make the White House have press briefings.
If they win a suit and force the White House to give Jim Acosta his press pass back, what's to stop Trump from saying, OK, then no press briefing from anybody?
Because Jim Acosta is just trying to build up his personal brand.
He is disruptive.
He's not asking hard questions.
You want to ask a hard question, ask about the drone bombings and the commando raids in Yemen.
Don't regurgitate talking points from cable news television.
That doesn't actually challenge Trump on anything.
That's what Jim Acosta is doing.
He's asking very basic questions we've all talked about time and time again that other journalists have asked.
All he is doing is baiting Trump into these debates and refusing to give up the microphone because he's trying to generate attention for himself.
Other journalists have called him out for this.
This is not a partisan issue.
It's a journalism issue.
And the only reason, in my opinion, people actually defend Acosta is because 1.
They probably don't know he has a history of this disruptive behavior or 2.
They're tribalists who hate Trump and they want to side with whoever is against him.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
Do you think CNN has any merit to their suit?
Do you think they should have sued?
Do you think Jim Acosta should get his press pass back?
Comment below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
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