President Trump's threat to ban three national news outlets from covering the White House is sparking rebuke from First Amendment advocates, elected Democrats and critics from across politics and media. In a Truth Social post Friday afternoon, Trump wrote he was banning CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House "effective…
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Justice Department defends press ban as a decorum measure in court; hours later the president calls the press sleazebags
As it ran on the front
Let me be clear about what the filing does and does not say.
The Justice Department went into federal court and made a narrow argument: that reporting from CNN, MS NOW and Politico raises national security concerns, and that the journalists involved failed to act with "professionalism and decorum." That is a standards case. Standards cases are boring. That you find this one exciting is a media problem, not a constitutional one.…
…(cont) Now, the filing says the President determined the three outlets were in "violation of the standards of professionalism and decorum" expected at the White House. Determined. That is the executive branch doing executive branch work. He determined it on the afternoon of Friday the 18th, in a post, announcing the ban "effective immediately" — and the reason he gave there was that the outlets were banned "as a result of their constant 'reporting' FAKE NEWS!" — and I want to be precise, because FAKE NEWS is not a classification level. It's a quality complaint. Those are two different arguments and only one of them is in front of the judge. Did I say that? That doesn't sound like me. The standard existed. It simply got written down later, by lawyers, in the version that counts.
By Saturday the three outlets were reporting that their journalists had been denied access to the premises, and the president of the White House Correspondents' Association, Jacqui Heinrich, called for that access to be restored immediately. Professionals disagreeing about professionalism. Governor Wes Moore said on Sunday television that the President uses the Constitution as a "suggestion box," which is a Sunday line, not a legal argument, and I'd thank you to note the judge did not ask for one.
Then Tuesday. Kaitlan Collins, from a banned network, is at the United Nations, asks about the war, and the President tells her, "You should not be here covering me," and goes on about media sleazebags. Is that decorum? It is the enforcement of decorum, which is a different — no. Stop. The filing's claim is that those reporters lack decorum. The demonstration of that claim, on camera, was the word sleazebags, and the offense in the sentence was covering him. I won't pretend those two things sit comfortably in the same week.
But the ban is not about what he calls reporters. It is about what they print, which the announcement described as FAKE NEWS, which is where we came in.
And he said other outlets could be added. That isn't a threat. That's notice. Everyone still holding a pass has been told, in advance, in writing, exactly what the standard is.
“They stood up in a federal court and said three newsrooms are a national security matter, and then the man who banned them went to the UN and told a reporter who asked about a war that she shouldn't be there covering him — that's the standard, right there, out loud: not what you print, whether you point it at him. The lawyers wrote "professionalism and decorum" because "I didn't like the question" doesn't survive a filing. And he already said other outlets could be added, so the rest of the room now knows the price of the next question.”
“The ban is content-neutral — it's about conduct, decorum, the standards any workplace — okay, the announcement did say FAKE NEWS, but that's the President speaking, not the filing speaking, and the court reads the filing. And the sleazebag remark was at the UN, which is a separate building entirely, so I fail to see how it bears on — fine, it bears on it, but nobody has proven the decorum standard is just him, and until somebody does I'm going to keep calling it a standard.”
The receipts
President Trump determined that CNN, MS NOW and Politico were in “violation of the standards of professionalism and decorum” expected at the White House.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) on Sunday accused President Trump of using the Constitution as a "suggestion box" with his ban on CNN, Politico and MS NOW reporters covering the White House. Moore said in an interview on "State of the Union" with CNN's Dana Bash that Trump "seems to have a real problem" with...
After President Trump announced this week he was banning Politico, CNN and MS NOW from accessing the White House, the three media outlets reported Saturday their journalists were denied access to the executive premises. White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) President Jacqui Heinrich called on the White House to “immediately”…
In one of his most direct assaults on the First Amendment, President Donald Trump announced in a Friday afternoon tirade that he would ban CNN, MSNOW (formerly MSNBC), and Politico from the White House. "I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW... and Politico from the White House as a result…
The Justice Department claimed that reporting from CNN, MS NOW and Politico raises national security concerns and accused their journalists of failing to act with "professionalism and decorum."
President Trump says he will bar CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. Trump added that other media outlets could be added to his ban.
President Trump ripped CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday for covering him despite banning the network along with MS NOW and Politico from the White House. “You should not be here covering me,” Trump told the chief White House correspondent before his speech at the United Nations General Assembly after she asked when the war...
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.