Guardian reporter: No one has agreed to new White House rules for reporters

A political reporter for The Guardian said Sunday she doesn’t believe White House reporters have agreed to guidelines set out by the White House for future press conferences following its controversial decision to revoke CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s credentials.

“I don’t think that anyone has agreed to the rules because there’s no reason for the White House to dictate the terms about how reporters do their jobs,” Sabrina Siddiqui said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.”

{mosads}The White House last week dropped its bid to rescind Acosta’s hard pass following a contentious press conference with the president. Instead, it said it would enforce rules at future press events that limit the number of follow up questions a reporter can ask if they are recognized by President Trump or the communications staff.

“Follow-ups are commonplace, and in fact they serve a very critical importance when you think about the fact that the president might for example try and avoid answering a certain question, or he might answer it in a way that’s misleading. That’s precisely where a good follow up question comes into play,” Siddiqui said.

“So all of this really comes back to the idea that the White House does not want to admit that it got the Jim Acosta situation wrong, and it wants to prolong this feud with the media because they know that’s something the president can use to harden support within his base,” she added.

“Frankly, I don’t think that anyone has agreed to the rules because there’s no reason for the White House to dictate the terms about how reporters do their jobs,” @SabrinaSiddiqui says about the White House announcing rules governing conduct at presidential press conferences. pic.twitter.com/lW41bRhr7h

— Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) November 25, 2018

A federal judge ordered the White House to restore Acosta’s press pass after he and CNN sued the Trump administration on First Amendment and Fifth Amendment grounds. The judge ruled the White House had violated Acosta’s right to due process.

Trump has had a fraught relationship with the media since hitting the campaign trail in 2015. He regularly derides coverage he dislikes as “fake news,” has called reporters “enemies of the people” and told Acosta he is a “rude, terrible person.”