Chelsea Handler called for reporters to “boycott covering” the White House and warned they could be next after CNN’s Jim Acosta lost his credentials.
“I watched what happened with @Acosta happen in real time yesterday, and that video is altered,” the 43-year-old comedian tweeted to her millions of followers Thursday. (RELATED: ‘View’ Co-Hosts Say WH Female Aide Committed ‘Battery’ Against Acosta: ‘She Shouldn’t Have Touched Him’)
Chelsea Handler speaks onstage at EMILY’s List’s “Resist, Run, Win” Pre-Oscars Brunch on February 27, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rachel Murray/Getty Images for EMILY’s List)
“Every reporter who has any shred of dignity should boycott covering the WH until you are all allowed in freely and equally,” she added. “If you don’t stand up for one another, you will be next.” (RELATED: Chelsea Handler Says Graham Is ‘Being Blackmailed By Russia’)
I watched what happened with @Acosta happen in real time yesterday, and that video is altered. Every reporter who has any shred of dignity should boycott covering the WH until you are all allowed in freely and equally. If you don’t stand up for one another, you will be next.
— Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) November 8, 2018
The comments came after the CNN reporter had his WH hard press pass revoked over what Press Secretary Sarah Sanders later called “inappropriate behavior” involving a scuffle between Acosta and a WH intern. She had attempted to take his microphone away to pass it to the next reporter during a press conference with President Donald Trump.
“We will not tolerate the inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video,” Sanders tweeted, along with a video.
We stand by our decision to revoke this individual’s hard pass. We will not tolerate the inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video. pic.twitter.com/T8X1Ng912y
— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) November 8, 2018
Members of the media also accused the WH of releasing a doctored video to support their claim that Acosta was the one in the wrong. The clip posted by Sanders showed a zoomed in moment that appeared to show the CNN reporter pushing the intern’s arm away.
A short time later, Buzzfeed posted they fact-checked the claim and found that the changes between the “high-quality video to a low-quality gif” necessarily changed the speed, but agreed that accusations of the WH video being doctored were not founded.
There’s no evidence that the video was deliberately sped up — but the change in format, from a high quality video to a low quality gif, turns the question of whether it was “doctored” into a semantic debate.
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) November 8, 2018