White House suspends press credentials of senior CNN journalist after spat with Trump

In an unprecedented move, the White House has suspended the credentials of a senior CNN journalist for his "disgusting and outrageous" behaviour, hours after he had a testy exchange with President Donald Trump during a marathon news conference.

The move came just hours after CNN's chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta drew the ire of Trump by persisting with questions about his views on a caravan of Central American migrants making its way to the US border and refused the president's orders to sit down, and clung to the microphone.

The removal of Acosta's pass is a sharp escalation of tensions between the Trump administration and the media.

At the news conference, which lasted 1 hour and 26 minutes, Trump snapped at the press corps, called reporters "rude" for asking questions, and made baseless claims about political polling.

Acosta was one of the first reporters Trump called on. "Thank you, Mr President," he said. "I want to challenge you on one of the statements that you made in the tail end of the campaign."
"As you know, Mr President, the caravan is not an invasion," Acosta said. "It's a group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the US."
Trump, sarcastically, replied, "Thank you for telling me that, I appreciate it."
Acosta: "Why did you characterise it as such?"
"Because I consider it an invasion. You and I have a difference of opinion."
"But do you think that you demonised immigrants?"
Acosta called out the misleading ad released by the Republican Party and said: "They're hundreds of miles away, though. They're hundreds and hundreds of miles away. That's not an invasion."
"You know what? I think you should," Trump started to say, pointing at Acosta. "Honestly, I think you should let me run the country. You run CNN. And if you did it well, your ratings would be much better."
Describing the journalist's behaviour as "disgusting and outrageous", White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, in a statement on Wednesday said, "As a result of today's incident, the White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice."
Peter Baker from The New York Times, who has been covering the White House for 22 years, said, "This is something I have never seen since I started covering the White House in 1996. Other presidents did not fear tough questioning."