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CNN's Jim Acosta: 'The White House's suppression of information wouldn't even be tolerated at a council meeting'

Many members of the media are furious that questions are being avoided and audio and video is being banned

Christopher Hooton
Tuesday 20 June 2017 09:27 BST
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No image of yesterday's White House press briefing could be provided as cameras were banned.
No image of yesterday's White House press briefing could be provided as cameras were banned.

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CNN's senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta has aired his frustrations over the Trump administration's silence and avoidance of difficult questions in no uncertain terms.

"Make no mistake about what we are all witnessing," he wrote on Twitter. "This is a WH that is stonewalling the news media. Hiding behind no camera/no audio gaggles.

"There is a suppression of information going on at this WH that would not be tolerated at a city council mtg or press conf with a state gov.

"Call me old fashioned but I think the White House of the United States of America should have the backbone to answer questions on camera."

Acosta was furious that no video or audio was allowed to be taken at Sean Spicer's latest briefing, also noting that he "took a question from a Russian reporter but not from CNN."

"Also did not take questions from politico or WaPost," Politico's Hadas Gold added.

​Spicer again refused to answer the question of whether or not President Trump believes in climate change, and asked simply about the existence of recordings of Trump's conversations with fired FBI director James Comey, Spicer said their may be an answer "by the end of the week".

“I don’t know why everyone is going along with this," Acosta elaborated in an interview on CNN.

"It just doesn’t make any sense to me. And it just feels like we are slowly but surely being dragged into a new normal in this country where the President of the United States is allowed to insulate himself from answering hard questions.”

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