reasoning wasn t mentioned. and the white house simply referred to disrespectful conduct on the part of mr. acosta. he said that was problematic as well. but yes, the judge definitely ruling that it is the individual journalist s rights that should not be interfered with in this case. it doesn t matter about the organization as a whole and whether or not they have other journalists to supplant jim acosta in this case. it matters for the individual right of a journalist and their press freedom, and their due process rights. the law matters. we have seen it here. we saw it with the muslim ban. we saw it with family separation at the border. the judges step up for the law. jessica schneider, great reporting. thank you. let s bring back in jeffrey toobin and brian stelter. jeffrey, i have always been proud to call jim acosta a colleague and a friend. but just those words, all he said was let s get back to work. this is not about him. this is about press freedom, and he will go back to
so i hate to say it, but it probably takes a little longer. i m going to write the phrase down, the president can depart from the truth sometimes. i said that more than once. if i can be a little more blunt, i think the president has lied. and is a loan liar and lies about small things, things that folks don t even know why he chooses to lie about them, and that is in fact why his lawyers are very concerned about him answering questions in person and on paper from the special counsel. let me also get you on this, because when you talk about the importance of press freedom and real news, we re about to get the ruling from the judge in the cnn case against the white house in terms of press access. we have also learned overnight that the president s top pick right now, the person our reporting has him leaning to to potentially pick to be the u.n. ambassador for the u.s., heather nauert, was asked about how dictators around the world have used this fake news rallying cry, sort of e
acosta is always that he s too aggressive. he s a showboat. that s what you hear on fox news, that he grand stands. you saw jim acosta simply saying he wants to get back to work. there s a lot to cover at this white house. there s a lot to cover in the trump presidency. we need to have reporters on the front lawn covering these stories every day, including jim acosta. it s an important moment for press freedom because this entire case is a test of the rights that we have in america for coverage of the white house, for coverage of politicians. and even reporters in other states, covering state houses, who cover city councils, they re watching this, too, because a tone gets set from the top. the president s attacks on the press are endless, but today, the institutions worked. the courts ruled in the favor of the free press, and of course, as yjessica was saying, limited ruling, but it waw an important first round. what was so striking about this was the unanimity of the press corps. ev
we have seen volunteers trickling in. all across florida, in every county. volunteers are going through and evaluating overvotes and undervotes. overvote is where the machine read more than one vote in a particular race. and undervote is where the machine didn t read any vote in a particular race. so they need human eyes to take a look at this and discern what was the voter invent. we ll keep an eye on it. jessica, thanks. we have to break in here because we have breaking news now. just in to cnn, a federal judge has sided with cnn saying the white house was wrong to revoke our colleague jim acosta s press pass. federal judge timothy kelly ordering the white house to reinstate his press pass. immediately. they had sought immediate relief to this. so a victory in this case. you can say broader, more than for cnn, for press freedom. again, this is about all