The Enemy of the People

by Jim Acosta

  But the administration’s overreach during the hearing, in arguing that the president could bar any journalist he chose, gave the WHCA more than enough reason to act. The organization’s statement got right to the point: “The President of the United States maintains that he has absolute, unbridled discretion to decide who can report from inside the White House. Under the President’s view of the law, if he does not like the content of an article that a journalist writes about him, he can deny that journalist access to the White House. If he does not like the viewpoint that a journalist expresses about him, he can deny that journalist access to the White House,” the statement read.

  I was truly happy with the last part of the statement, which really got to our point about the real danger of the administration’s argument before the court, that Trump could take his false criticisms against the press to the next level. He could begin to crush critical coverage of his administration. If successful, Trump could potentially bully all of us into submission.

  “If he does not like a question that a journalist asks him, he can deny that journalist access to the White House. If he decides that a journalist’s story is ‘fake news,’ he can deny that journalist access to the White House. In fact, according to the President, if he alone considers a journalist a ‘bad’ or a ‘rude’ person, he can deny that journalist access to the White House. And he can do so without providing that journalist with any due process whatsoever. The President’s view of the law is wrong. While he may have absolute discretion to exclude a member of the press from his Trump Tower residence, he does not have absolute discretion to exclude a member of the press from the White House.”

  The authority the president was claiming, the WHCA warned the judge, went way too far. My case, which had begun with a ridiculous act of retaliation on the part of the White House, had mushroomed into a full-blown challenge to the abilities of a free press in America to cover the highest office in the land.

  Now, if you think I was patting myself on the back over this, you’re wrong. Truth be told, I was actually beginning to worry, deeply, that my exchange with Trump could do serious damage to my profession and to a lot of my colleagues. If this Trump-appointed judge were to decide against CNN in any way, it was not an overstatement to argue that there could be an immediate chilling effect on the press in America. I worried about April Ryan. They had tried to punish my colleague, Kaitlan Collins, for her questions. They could go after her, too. The White House could start ousting journalists it didn’t like. Governors and mayors across the country could start blocking reporters from official events. All those government officials would have to do, I worried, was point to CNN v. Trump, and that would be that.

  This whole thing could come crashing down, I thought, and I would be blamed. I would be radioactive. Other news outlets would probably not touch me. This very well could be the end of my career.

  Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night. Adding to my stress level was the steady stream of threatening messages I was receiving on social media. One deranged man sent a series of violent emails too disturbing to publish.

  The next day came, and we made our way to the courthouse. My bureau chief, Sam Feist, along with our PR executive Lauren Pratapas, CNN attorney David Vigilante, and the Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher legal team quickly entered the building. We made some small talk and tried to tell a few jokes, but there was no cutting through the tension. We were on pins and needles, nervously anticipating the judge’s decision. There were a few predictions. I’m not sure any of us thought the judge would grant a temporary restraining order that would immediately restore my hard pass. The cynicism bug had gotten all of us.

  And then . . . we could not have been happier with the result.

  Judge Kelly, as Olson had predicted, leaned on the Sherrill decision in his ruling. The White House “must provide due process if they are to revoke Mr. Acosta’s hard pass,” he said.

  Interestingly, the judge seemed to suggest that there was some credence to the government’s claim that there was no First Amendment right to enter the White House grounds. But even that was a hollow victory for Trump and Sanders. Once journalists are admitted onto the White House grounds, the judge continued, reporters have a First Amendment right to be there.

  As the judge was speaking, one of the Gibson Dunn lawyers, Joshua Lipshutz, gave me a look that’s hard to put into words. He kept nodding at me in astonishment as the judge read through his ruling, as if to say, “Wow . . . this just keeps getting better and better.” And it did. It got better and better.

  Judge Kelly admonished the White House at several times during his ruling, noting that the government could not pinpoint who had made the decision that had led to the revocation of my hard pass. My sources told me Shine, Sanders, and Trump had all agreed to do it, but that Shine was the driving force behind the push to boot me out of the White House. And perhaps the government’s lawyers just didn’t want to admit that in court. In a small victory for me, the judge chastised the White House over its use of the doctored video, describing it as being of “questionable accuracy.” That’s as close to a sick burn as a federal judge can get. It was a rebuke to Sanders from a judge her boss had placed on the bench.

  Kelly went on to grant the temporary restraining order and instructed the White House to return my hard pass. We were, needless to say, ecstatic. We had won.

  “Our sincere thanks to all who have supported not just CNN, but a free, strong and independent American press,” CNN said in a statement.

  I finally broke my company- and self-imposed silence, telling reporters outside the courthouse, “I just want to thank all my colleagues in the press who supported me this week. I want to thank the judge for the decision that he made. And let’s go back to work.”

  * * *

  THEN I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF. AFTER WE GOT IN THE CAR, I LET off a little steam.

  “We beat Trump!” I yelled.

  Perhaps they could hear me all the way across town at the White House, as Sanders and Trump both tried to save face, surprising no one. During a brief availability with reporters, Trump insisted that he was a proud supporter of a free press.

  “We want total freedom of the press,” he said. “But you have to act with respect when you’re at the White House. And when I see the way some of my people get treated at news conferences, it’s terrible. So we’re setting up a certain standard, which is what the court is requesting,” he added.

  Insert laugh track here. Trump was telling me “you have to act with respect when you’re at the White House.” His words struck me as the height of hypocrisy. Had he treated the White House with respect? Once again, he was at war with the truth. Trump has not elevated the presidency.

  Sanders cherry-picked what she wanted to read in the judge’s decision.

  “The court made clear that there is no absolute First Amendment right to access the White House,” she said in a statement. But she ignored the fact that Judge Kelly had said that reporters covering the presidency do have First Amendment rights once they are admitted into the White House. I found it bizarre that she would continue to parrot the Justice Department’s absurd and overreaching claim about access to the White House complex. Trump had just said, “We want total freedom of the press.” And Sanders was arguing for something well short of that.

  They couldn’t even get their gaslighting straight.

  But there was no time to focus on all that. As I said outside the courthouse, “Let’s get back to work.”

  CNN president Jeff Zucker emailed to congratulate me and basically said the same thing. Get back to work! The plan was for me to go back to the White House, retrieve my hard pass, and file a piece that evening for The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. The only thing I asked in return was that I be able to leave early to make my daughter’s dance recital. In light of the ordeal I had just been through, permission was granted.

  As excited as we were about the judge’s decision, Trump supporters were still lashing out on soc
ial media. Some of the comments once again raised red flags.

  Kill Jim Acosta, one tweet read. At that moment, CNN security officials mandated that I receive around-the-clock protection for the next few days. It was another jarring moment, but I had to put it aside. I had to get back to work.

  As I returned to the White House, warnings were coming in from our producer there that day, Allie Malloy, that dozens of news crews were awaiting my return. Oh crap, I thought. Folks were going to say it again: “You’re making yourself the story!”

  Feist accompanied me back to the White House. And Allie was right. Approximately fifty producers, photographers, and reporters were standing in the driveway of the White House to capture the moment. It was a little odd being on the other side of the stakeout. Unsure what to do at that moment as I faced the cameras, I remember nervously asking everybody if they had a question for me. They did not. So, I basically repeated what I had said outside the courthouse. One reporter asked me what advice I would give young journalists.

  “Do your job and tell the truth,” I replied. Honestly, I wish I had said more at the time. I’m a TV reporter; I always want to say more. But CNN was eager to limit my comments that day. So I kept it brief. Theoretically, we were still in the middle of a court battle. Yes, we had been granted a temporary restraining order, but at the time, there was still a chance we would have to continue to fight our case in front of Judge Kelly. Brevity was wise counsel.

  One of the photographers at the White House, a “still” (as we call them) named William Moon, snapped a shot of my hard pass as it caught a ray of sunshine. I couldn’t believe my eyes when he sent it to me. Technically, we are not supposed to take a picture of our hard passes. The Secret Service frowns upon that, I suppose, because it could encourage criminals to use them to produce counterfeit credentials. But this photo was perfectly fine to share because you couldn’t really see the hard pass in it. It was just a burst of bright light hanging at the bottom of my lanyard. I stared at the photo and thought to myself, What a crazy week.

  Who would have thought, after all those rallies and press conferences and after all that abuse I had absorbed over the last three years, that I would end up in court fighting for my rights as a journalist? Who would have thought I would win that battle?

  Not me.

  So, I went back to work, turned in my piece, and actually made it to my daughter’s dance recital. But I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

  * * *

  AS I WAS DRIVING HOME LATE FRIDAY NIGHT, AN EMAIL FLASHED ON my phone. It was from Sarah Sanders (Shine was copied on it), informing me that the White House had decided to seek the revocation of my hard pass. Despite their defeat in court, decided by a Trump-appointed judge, they weren’t giving up the fight. Ah right, I thought. This was Trumpworld. You never admit a mistake; you double down. Sanders’s reasoning was that they were giving me ample notification and due process, this time around.

  I immediately called Sam Feist, who had been copied on the email. My first thought was to just leave it alone. This sounded like desperation to me. The Trump people were not accustomed to losing. So, this may have been just more flailing to save face. I suggested to Sam that we not speak a word of this outside a small circle inside CNN. That way, Sarah’s letter wouldn’t leak from us. It has to leak from the White House. The ball, we reasoned, would then be in their court.

  Unlike the first time around, when I tweeted Sarah’s statement and the video of my hard pass being yanked, mum was the word. Let’s enjoy the victorious news cycle as long as we can, we thought. And let’s see just how eager Sarah is to start World War III all over again.

  I had reached out to my lawyer, respected Washington attorney Robert Barnett, to get his advice on the Sanders letter. He predicted that Sarah’s gambit would be unsuccessful. You can’t retroactively start a process for something that had already happened, Barnett said.

  “It’s never a good idea to poke a federal judge in the eye,” he added.

  For the weekend, our strategy seemed to work. The White House may have expected we would immediately protest, but we were silent. All day Saturday and much of Sunday over that weekend, the headlines were all positive for CNN. The stories were about how we had won. We had won!

  Then Sunday night came. The White House must have leaked the story. Mike Allen with Axios reported on the existence of the letter. Other reporters were beginning to confirm the story. The only silver lining was that we had kept Sarah’s ridiculous letter out of the headlines for a good forty-eight hours.

  CNN immediately requested an emergency hearing with Judge Kelly, who had just adjudicated the matter on the previous Friday. We wanted the White House to understand that we could play hardball, too. After all, there was no reason to take the escalation from Sanders lightly. Her new letter stated that Trump “is aware of this preliminary decision and concurs.”

  Our motion for an emergency hearing described the latest White House salvo as an “attempt to provide retroactive due process.” But maybe the White House would get away with this one, I thought. Judge Kelly had insisted that the White House needed a process for revoking hard passes. This was a rather lame attempt at due process, but it might meet the judge’s standard. I was again filled with dread. Sanders had said in her letter that my suspension would go into effect after the temporary restraining order had ended. But the White House was trying to pull a fast one, attempting to defy the judge’s order while, at the same time, trying to comply with it. This struck me as too cute by half. Maybe we would be all right.

  In a message to the Justice Department, Ted Boutrous was blunt with the government’s lawyers, describing the Sanders letter as “further evidence of your clients’ animus towards Mr. Acosta based on his work as CNN’s chief White House correspondent.” Boutrous had put his finger on it. The White House was acting out of spite. They couldn’t help themselves. And we needed Judge Kelly to put a stop to it.

  Then a funny thing happened Monday afternoon, less than a day after Axios had reported the news of Sanders’s letter. A tweet from John Roberts of Fox News appeared on my screen. John had broken the news that the White House was restoring my press pass. Sarah or John’s old boss Bill Shine must have tipped him off. I emailed Sarah. Is this true? She confirmed that it was. Within a couple of minutes, she had released a statement.

  “This afternoon we have notified Jim Acosta and CNN that his hard pass has been restored,” Sanders said. Then, once again, she tried to save face: “We have also notified him of certain rules that will govern White House press conferences going forward.” Then, with the graciousness we all came to expect, she took one last slap.

  “We have created these rules with a degree of regret,” she added.

  Yes, I’m sure you have a lot of regrets, Sarah. I’m sure you do.

  The new rules were painfully unserious, like something cooked up by a kindergarten teacher in a MAGA hat. Here they are:

  1. A journalist called upon to ask a question will ask a single question and then will yield the floor to other journalists;

  2. At the discretion of the President or other White House official taking questions, a follow-up question or questions may be permitted; and where a follow up has been allowed and asked, the questioner will then yield the floor;

  3. “Yielding the floor” includes, when applicable, physically surrendering the microphone to White House staff for use by the next questioner;

  4. Failure to abide by any of rules 1–3 may result in suspension or revocation of the journalist’s hard pass.

  As I told some of my colleagues, the Trump people don’t like to lose. And during this episode, they had clearly gotten spanked. Further, they had lost to the people they hated the most, the press. One of their own judges had rejected their assault on the press. As for these new rules, nobody took them seriously, including the president. White House journalists continued to ask follow-up questions. And Trump continued taking them because he enjoys the sparring, at least when he thinks h
e’s coming out on top.

  The following day, Trump proved my point. He walked out onto the South Lawn of the White House, on his way to an event, and took questions from reporters. And by questions, I mean multiple questions from multiple reporters. Reporters asked lots of follow-up questions. David Martosko of the Daily Mail asked a handful. (You could say David was refusing to yield to other reporters, but he should have done that; he’s a reporter.) And there was no drama. Almost immediately and with little fanfare, Sarah’s rules were out the window.

  When Trump came to me, I asked him about the murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Despite an assessment from the CIA that the Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud had orchestrated Khashoggi’s gruesome murder in a consulate in Istanbul, Trump had issued a bizarre statement that day that sided with the Saudis on Khashoggi’s death, saying of the Saudi crown prince, “[M]aybe he did and maybe he didn’t.” I asked Trump about his dismissal of the CIA assessment. He didn’t really answer the question. So, I asked a follow-up. Again, there was no drama as Trump engaged.

  “Are you letting the Saudis get away with murder, murdering a journalist?” I asked.

  “No. This is about America First,” he responded. Standing up for a reporter is how you put America first, I thought. But Trump was on his way to the next reporter and the next question. At the conclusion of that go-round, Trump pointed at me as if to say, “You’re back.” And I was.

  Then something happened that made me sick. As he moved down the line to other reporters, Trump refused to answer a question from my friend April Ryan. April had asked whether the White House would investigate Ivanka Trump’s use of a personal email account to send and receive messages about government business. Trump just pointed at her with a scowl on his face. He then turned to others in the crowd and asked, “What else?” As tough as she is, April appeared hurt by Trump’s nastiness at that moment. I know she brushed it off, but it pained me.