Did CNN’s Jim Acosta "Place Hands" on White House Intern? See for Yourself

The White House suspended the press credentials of CNN’s Jim Acosta on Wednesday hours after President Trump seemingly took offense to his line of questioning.

After an intense back-and-forth with Trump, a female White House intern attempted to take the microphone away from Acosta, prompting the journalist to raise his arm and continue speaking.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” Acosta said to the intern after the momentary graze and before relinquishing his turn to speak directly to Trump.

BREAKING: President Trump, CNN Correspondent Jim Acosta and @NBCNews Correspondent @PeterAlexander engage in tense exchanges in post-election news conference. pic.twitter.com/WUlXemGn7y

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 7, 2018

Trump then insulted Acosta’s professionalism and his character.

“CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them,” Trump said. “You are a rude, terrible person. You shouldn’t be working for CNN. You’re a very rude person. The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible. And the way you treat other people are horrible. You shouldn’t treat people that way.”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders later accused Acosta of “placing his hands on a young woman,” and said based on those grounds, his White House press credentials — known as a “hard pass” — would be revoked.

To many, the widely shared video of the exchange between Acosta and the unidentified young woman showed otherwise. And since Acosta was denied entry back onto the White House grounds, many of his fellow journalists, media organizations and First Amendment advocacy groups have condemned his suspension and voiced their support for Acosta.

Some news organizations are now also speculating that the White House’s video of the incident has been “doctored” from the original footage.

The intern's reach for the mic is slowed down, and the "chop" motion is accelerated. Here's an annotated side by side comparison: pic.twitter.com/wLCG5GVdo1

— Aymann Ismail (@aymanndotcom) November 8, 2018