CNN thought they held a winning hand.
The network sued Donald Trump and other officials over the White House yanking Jim Acosta’s White House pass.
But the lawsuit instantly backfired and handed Trump a big win.
CNN’s Lawsuit Hands Trump New Weapon Against The Fake News Media
CNN cheered when Judge Timothy Kelly handed down a ruling granting Acosta his White House “hard pass” back.
But the ruling was narrow.
Kelly did not rule on the First Amendment issue.
He only stated CNN was likely to win because there was no procedure in place to comply with the Fifth Amendment right to due process.
Trump realized he was ultimately the big winner.
There is no serious legal argument that anyone is entitled to cover a White House press conference.
The simple fact is time is a limited resource.
There needs to be limits on who can cover press conferences and how reporters conduct themselves so the event can move along smoothly and other reporters can ask questions.
Trump announced in a “Fox News Sunday” interview that they were drawing up new standards of conduct for reporters in order to stop showboats like Jim Acosta from ruining press events by hogging the spotlight.
“We have to create rules and regulations for conduct,” Trump declared. “It’s not a big deal. If he misbehaves, we’ll throw him out or we’ll stop the news conference.”
Fox News host Chris Wallace then asked Trump what the rules would be.
“You can’t keep asking questions,” the President replied. “We had a lot of reporters in that room, many, many reporters in that room, and they were unable to ask questions because this guy gets up and starts … just shouting out questions. And making statements, too.”
Trump added, “But I will say this: Nobody believes in the First Amendment more than I do. And if I think somebody is acting out of sorts, I will leave and say, ‘Thank you very much. Thanks for coming.’ And I’ll leave. Those reporters will not be too friendly to whoever it is that’s acting up.”
The Fake News Realizes They Are In Trouble
Fake news reporters immediately realized how CNN’s lawsuit backfired.
The judge’s ruling gave Trump a roadmap to kick out rude and disrespectful fake news reporters.
The New York Times’ chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, told Politico it was like having a “sword hanging over our heads.”Baker continued, “It leaves this idea that they are going to be the judge of who gets to cover them based on some probably arbitrary criteria that they will be the only ones to determine.”
He added, “The idea that suddenly you’re going to try to determine who is polite enough to ask the president questions is just kind of ridiculous.”
“As the organization that defends the interest of a free and independent news media at the White House, we have our role to play, but what that role will be, I don’t know yet,” White House Correspondent Association President Oliver Knox stated.
Fake news reporters celebrated when CNN filed the lawsuit and when Judge Kelly handed down his initial ruling.
But those smiles turned upside-down when they saw the true extent of their mistake.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
