# Jim Acosta **Jim Acosta** is an American journalist. He was [[CNN]]'s chief White House correspondent during Trump's first term, and he is the reporter at the center of the case that the vault's press-access litigation is measured against. Since January 2025 he has worked independently on [[Substack]]. ## The first-term antagonist Acosta became [[Donald Trump]]'s favorite on-camera foil early. At Trump's first post-election press conference, on **January 11, 2017**, Trump cut him off with "You are fake news!" That exchange fixed the phrase's modern meaning in mainstream coverage (see [[Fake News]]). His 2019 book, *The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America*, takes its title from Trump's label for the press. ## *CNN v. Trump* (2018) | Date | Event | |---|---| | Nov 7, 2018 | The White House revokes his hard pass after a combative press-conference exchange | | Nov 13, 2018 | CNN sues | | Nov 16, 2018 | Judge [[Timothy Kelly]], a Trump appointee, orders the pass restored for 14 days on Fifth Amendment due-process grounds. He notes, "I have not determined that the First Amendment was violated." | | Nov 19, 2018 | CNN drops the suit after the pass is restored | The ruling was narrow: the White House had to give notice and a chance to respond before pulling a pass. It did not say a reporter had a right to be there. ## Leaving CNN Acosta later became a CNN anchor. On **January 28, 2025**, after 18 years at the network, he left rather than accept a move to a midnight-to-2 a.m. slot. He started *The Jim Acosta Show* on Substack, which displayed more than 313,000 subscribers in early October 2026 (a figure reported by the platform, not independently checked). In August 2025 he was widely criticized for airing an interview with an AI-generated avatar of Joaquin Oliver, a student killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting. It aired on what would have been Oliver's 25th birthday. Acosta said Oliver's father, gun-safety activist Manuel Oliver, had approached him with the idea (see [[AI Slop]]). ## Why the vault cites him The 2018 case is the precedent the **[[White House Press Ban]]** litigation of September 2026 is built on, and the contrast is the point: - **2018:** one reporter's credential was pulled over his conduct, and the fix was due process. - **2026:** three whole organizations (CNN, MS NOW and Politico) were excluded by name, with their reporting given as the reason. The same judge has both cases. On September 24, 2026, Judge Kelly issued a 14-day temporary restraining order restoring the three outlets' access. Acosta is not a party to the 2026 case. He has commented on it publicly, calling it a ban "aimed at three specific news organizations." The [[Associated Press]]'s own exclusion over the "Gulf of America" style dispute (*AP v. Budowich*, still pending in the D.C. Circuit) sits between the two cases. ## See Also - [[White House Press Ban]] · [[Timothy Kelly]] · [[CNN]] · [[Associated Press]] - [[Fake News]] · [[First Amendment]] · [[Media Capture]] · [[Substack]]