The Trump White House handed down a deserved time-out to CNN’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta. Since when did the West Wing briefing room become a Constitutional right? “Is Trump obligated to provide access to whomever CNN chooses to represent the network in the West Wing, even if the individual assigned routinely baits the press secretary and bashes the president?” asks Pat Buchanan in The American Conservative.
CNN says that if Trump succeeds in pulling Acosta’s press pass, it could have a “chilling” effect on other White House correspondents.
But if it has a chilling effect on journalists who relish confronting the president and reaping the cheers, publicity and benefits that go with being a leader of the adversary press, why is that a problem?
The White House should set down rules of conduct for reporters in the briefing room, and if reporters repeatedly violate them, that should cost them their chairs and, in cases like Acosta’s, their credentials.
This confrontation is healthy, and the republic will survive if the press loses this fight, which the press itself picked.
The press needs a reality check on what they believe are their Constitutional rights. Do they have the right to come into your home or your children’s schools and act this way? No. Trump’s time-out for Acosta was long overdue.
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