WASHINGTON: The White House on Wednesday suspended the press pass of a CNN reporter who sparred with Donald Trump at a news conference, during which the president bran­ded him the “enemy of the people.”

A visibly angry Trump called reporter Jim Acosta a “rude, terrible person,” after the CNN White House correspondent refused the president’s orders to sit down and yield the microphone during the conference one day after the US midterm election.

“The White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders hours later, referring to Acosta, who then tweeted that he had been denied White House entry.

The heated exchange began after Acosta clung to the microphone and persisted with questions about the president’s repeated and angry denunciation of a caravan of poor Central Ame­rican migrants making their way through Mexico to the US border. He asked Trump why he has characterised it as an invasion.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2018