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White House threatens to ban reporter for asking questions

For the Trump administration, no news is good news, because almost any news is “fake news.” And the stubborn, panicked fear of journalists doing their jobs is pushing this White House to extremely undemocratic ends. During a contentious press briefing Monday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders grew visibly and vocally aggravated with CNN’s Jim Acosta, when he […]

By Alison R. Parker - December 12, 2017
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CNN reporter Jim Acosta
CNN reporter Jim Acosta

And the stubborn, panicked fear of journalists doing their jobs is pushing this White House to extremely undemocratic ends.

During a contentious press briefing Monday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders grew visibly and vocally aggravated with CNN’s Jim Acosta, when he tried to defend his fellow journalists who have made occasional mistakes in their reporting.

In Donald Trump’s authoritarian view, they all deserve to be fired. And Sanders sees nothing wrong with that.

“There’s a very big difference between making honest mistakes and purposefully misleading the American people,” she snapped, demanding that journalists “own up” to their errors.

Acosta shot back that they do, and then tried to ask Sanders about the women who have accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. Sanders repeatedly rebuffed and ignored his questions.

But that wasn’t the end of her despotic outbursts.

During a pool spray Tuesday morning, Acosta attempted to ask Trump about the disgusting, innuendo-laden tweet he sent attacking Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand. Trump, typically, ignored Acosta.

And Sanders dutifully followed in her boss’s footsteps — but Acosta was not having it:

Sanders ought to have known that a few snide words wouldn’t be enough to cow someone like Acosta, who has been a staunch thorn in the side of the Trump administration’s attacks on the First Amendment.

Acosta is also not reticent about calling Trump’s crass behavior in general, and shaming him for his repugnant insults against “nearly every minority or religious group that you can possibly offend here in the United States.”

NBC News White House correspondent Hallie Jackson immediately spoke up for her colleague:

This indeed is not how this is supposed to work, under normal circumstances.

But the Trump era is anything but normal.

When you have someone in the Oval Office who thinks it is perfectly acceptable to demand the firing of any journalist who makes even a minor and innocent mistake, one they immediately account for and correct, it is crystal clear that the administration does not think the norms and traditions apply to them.

But that won’t stop journalists from calling them out for it, as often and as loudly as necessary.


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