CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta, has been accused of physically assaulting a White House intern during a press conference last week, resulting in the removal of his press pass and banning access to him into the White House.
After the supposed altercation aired on national television, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted that the White House will “never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job.”
She continued by stating, “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.”
Sanders then released her own clip of the event in order to justify the ban on Acosta.
However, many have begun to speculate the authenticity of the video since comparing it to the original footage that was released.
Believed to have derived from InfoWars, Sanders’ video didn’t have audio and was edited to make the harmless contact Acosta had with the intern look aggressive by slowing and speeding-up the video during specific time-frames, according to the Washington Post.
However, in the original footage Acosta is shown apologizing to the intern once their arms collide.
“Pardon me, ma’am,” Acosta can be heard saying in CNN’s footage.
Meanwhile, neither the President or anyone else in the press room decide to accuse Acosta in that moment of “putting his hands” on the intern, because it was obviously an accident.
According to the Washington Post, “Side-by-side comparisons support claims from fact-checkers and experts such as Jonathan Albright, research director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, who argued that crucial parts of the video appear to have been altered so as to distort the action.”
Acosta, although having acted unprofessionally during the conference, had no intention of getting physical with the intern.
It was an honest mistake and has been blown out of proportion.
Having spoken to CNN’s Anderson Cooper about the incident, Acosta said, “I never thought in this country that I wouldn’t be able to go cover the President of the United States simply because I was trying to ask a question.”
The situation has been manipulated by the President and his staff in order to remove Acosta from the press corps.
Acosta has been known to ask questions that the President doesn’t want to address, such as his heinous claims against the people involved in the migrant caravan.
In reality, the White House isn’t concerned about the violence against women, instead, they’re manipulating this harmless altercation in order to suppress speech.
When the allegations of Brett Kavanaugh occured back in September, the White House immediately doubted the claims against him, but for some reason, they’re suddenly overtly concerned about Acosta’s arm getting entangled with the intern’s.
This ploy to frame Acosta as an abuser is not only disrespectful to him, but to the women around the world who have actually experienced acts of physical aggression.
The fact that President Trump accuses CNN of spreading fake news to the public only to have Press Secretary Sanders release an edited video of the press conference is not only ridiculous but incredibly ironic.
The White House Correspondents’ Association is not in support of the ban on Acosta and they “urge the White House to immediately reverse this weak and misguided action.”
As of now, the ban on Acosta still stands, and according to the President, it isn’t getting overturned any time soon.
