Resistance man Jim Acosta yelled questions at Trump during Easter Egg Roll

Jim Acosta is the grandstanding clown who covers the White House for CNN. As Brandon Morse at RedState puts it, Acosta “tends to inject his opinion into his reporting, and squabbles with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders over what he thinks are hard questions but are really just partisan talking points.”

Acosta is probably best known to Power Line readers for being trounced by Stephen Miller when he invoked the words on the Statue of Liberty during a debate about illegal immigration. Scott wrote about the mismatch here.

Yesterday, Acosta again embarrassed himself by yelling questions at President Trump during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. He did so while Trump was sitting at a coloring table with Melania and his son Barron, along with other children there to color and roll eggs.

“What about the DACA kids?” Acosta yelled out to Trump. “Should they worry about what’s going to happen to them?” Trump replied, “The Democrats have clearly let them down.” He then turned his attention back to the kids he was with.

Trump is right about DACA and the Dems. He was prepared to grant amnesty not only to “DACA kids” but to the many members of the DACA population who aren’t kids and to “dreamers” who aren’t even part of the DACA population. The Democrats turned that deal down for reasons having nothing to do with DACA.

Acosta, though, wished to grandstand some more. Thus, he yelled “Didn’t you kill DACA? Didn’t you kill DACA?” This time, Trump did not answer.

RedState’s Morse has the right line on Acosta. He writes:

Acosta has no regard for time and place because, to him, every time and place is one for self-aggrandizement. But it seems CNN as a network also has a weird sense of appropriate conduct for a journalist. It doesn’t say much for either of them as real news.

Either way, CNN continues to send Acosta to the White House despite his obvious flaws and agenda, which means that CNN is continuously endorsing the behavior. Courting it. Courting someone, anyway: The hard left, and Jim’s ego, which has grown to monumental proportions.

Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager for 2020, tweeted:

Maybe it is time for Jim Acosta to get a suspension for breaking protocol. He continues to embarrass himself and @CNN. Pull his credentials for each incident.

Acosta responded:

Just doing my job.. which is protected by the First Amendment of The Constitution. You might want to give it a read.

I don’t favor the White House pulling Acosta’s credentials. However, Acosta’s tweet is laughable.

First, is it really Acosta’s job to yell questions at President Trump during the White House Easter Egg Roll while he’s sitting with kids? If so, then the rest of the press corps presumably wasn’t doing its job.

As for the First Amendment, Acosta’s job does have certain protections. However, I think the White House would be on solid legal ground if it barred him from attending pressers based on his behavior and CNN certainly would be on solid legal ground if it suspended him.

A White House bar on Acosta because of the views he expresses might be problematic. So might barring CNN because of the content of its coverage. But the ban Parscale seemed to contemplate wouldn’t stop CNN from covering the White House and it would be based on Acosta’s inappropriate conduct, not the view he expressed.

President Trump has fielded hostile questions about “the DACA kids” before. Those who asked them weren’t barred. If Acosta were barred, it clearly would be because of the time and place of his question, not its content.

Again, I’m not advocating that Acosta be barred. Let him continue his clown show.

But Acosta’s claim that he “just doing his job” is silly and his suggestion that he has a First Amendment right to behave as he does is specious at best.

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