President Trump press conferences
At a nationally televised news conference in May 2016, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called Acosta "a real beauty" for his reporting. Interrupting Acosta, who asked Trump about his ability to deal with scrutiny, Trump said: "Excuse me, excuse me, I've watched you on TV. You're a real beauty."
During President-elect Trump's first press conference on January 11, 2017, Acosta attempted to ask a question regarding Russia, but Trump called on others, describing Acosta and CNN as "fake news".
Acosta got into a heated debate at a White House press conference on August 2, 2017, with White House senior policy advisor Stephen Miller over the Trump administration's support for the RAISE Act. Politico said this interchange "cemented Acosta's undisputed role as the chief antagonist" for CNN against the Trump administration. On August 2, 2018, Acosta asked the press secretary of the White House Sarah Huckabee Sanders if she agreed to disavow President Trump's description of journalists as "the enemy of the people", but she did not directly answer the question, instead speaking about her own treatment by the media.
Acosta verbally sparred with President Trump during a White House press conference on November 7, 2018, following the 2018 midterm elections. During the press conference, President Trump briefly responded to Jim Acosta's question about immigration rhetoric and campaign ads, and then moved on to another journalist. However, Acosta attempted to ask follow-up questions and speak over Trump and other reporters. Trump repeatedly told Acosta, "that's enough", and told him to "put down the mic." Later Trump described him as "a rude, terrible person."
According to the Press Secretary Sanders, Acosta interfered with a White House intern who was in charge of the roving microphone, pushing her arm aside. Subsequently, Acosta's press pass, US Secret Service security credentials facilitating entry onto the White House grounds, was suspended "until further notice." CNN described Acosta's suspension as "retaliation for his challenging questions" and accused Sanders of lying.
The following day, the White House circulated a video, which CNN said was doctored. The White House video matched a video posted by conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson of the far-right website InfoWars, which had been edited to portray the contact as approaching a physical blow. Social media intelligence agency Storyful said that, within the two-second long snippet of video that is repeated within the 15-seconds long overall clip, three frames are paused a fraction of a second, resulting in a slight time compression elsewhere than this highlighted footage showing brief contact of the intern's arm with Acosta's. Watson said he did not alter the clip, obtained from a GIF posted at The Daily Wire and that he republished as a compressed MP4 file after adding a zoomed-in replay.
CNN made behind-the-scenes efforts to restore Acosta's access and prepared a lawsuit. Media law professor Jonathan Peters said that "a journalist has a first-amendment right of access to places closed to the public, but open generally to the press [...which] can't be denied arbitrarily or absent compelling reasons" and free speech litigator Floyd Abrams said, "CNN might have reluctance to have a lawsuit titled 'CNN vs. Donald Trump.' That said, yes, I think they should sue."
Trump said Acosta's action as depicted "wasn't overly horrible". Concerning the clip, Trump said, "They gave a close-up view. That's not doctoring." Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway described the clip as not altered but sped up, taking exception to what she believed the "overwrought description of this video as being doctored as if we put somebody else's arm in there."
