Attorney General Todd Blanche on Sunday claimed that President Trump did not deny White House reporters access to the executive mansion, after the president banned CNN, Politico and MS NOW reporters from the grounds and had their passes confiscated by Secret Service. "Well, the president hasn't denied access," Blanche told host Martha…
Page B1From§Eachthe early evening edition — 27 September 2026
Attorney general repeats the national security excuse a judge already doubted, then the president proves the judge right.
As it ran on the front
Let's start where the record starts, because the record is the whole defense here. On September 19th, CNN, MS NOW and Politico lost their White House access. That's a fact, not a framing. Whether it counts as a ban or something gentler is exactly what a federal court took up four days later, on the 23rd, when Judge Timothy Kelly asked a lawyer for the media outlets challenging the ban whether national security could ever justify it. "Ever be a winner?" is the phrase in the transcript. A Trump appointee asking that is worth sitting with.
The judge answered his own question on the 24th: he ordered the passes restored. The White House's response to a court order restoring access was, according to the outlets themselves, to deny access anyway that same day.…
…(cont) Which brings us to Sunday. Attorney General Todd Blanche went on ABC's This Week and told Martha Raddatz, "the president hasn't denied access, that's not the right way to describe it." He reiterated national security as the justification — the same justification a sitting federal judge had, four days earlier, publicly doubted could ever apply to this. The doubt is on the record. Blanche said it again anyway.
Here's where the job is supposed to be: defend the distinction, access versus a ban, restriction versus denial. Scheduling matter, security posture — that's the pitch. It doesn't survive contact with the facts. The reporters had passes. The passes were taken. A judge ordered them back. They came back and were denied again. I don't have a softer verb for that sequence, and neither, apparently, does the transcript.
And then the part that doesn't fit the line at all: at his next gaggle, the president looked at one of those readmitted reporters and called them "fake news," on camera, to their face. I was going to call that a coincidence of timing. It isn't. It's the same week the denial was denied.
“They didn't lose the argument, they just kept making it after the judge already called it a loser, and everybody in that briefing room knew it before Blanche opened his mouth Sunday morning. The security story was never about security — it's about who gets to ask the follow-up question — and the guy running the executive branch proved that himself by calling a reinstated reporter fake news the second the cameras came back on. That's not a legal dispute, that's a man who doesn't like being covered deciding who gets to cover him.”
“Nobody's access was denied, it was recalibrated for national security, and the Attorney General said so himself, on the record, Sunday morning. A judge doubting that argument doesn't mean it's wrong — judges ask hard questions, that's the job, not a referendum. And if the President happened to call a reporter fake news five minutes after that... did I say five minutes? I don't actually know the timeline. Forget the timeline.”
Earlier in this story
- Attorney general insists Trump 'hasn't denied access' one day after Trump denied it to a reporter's face By Chip · the matinee edition, 27 September 2026
- President spends Xi state dinner insulting the reporters a judge just ordered him to let back in. By Chip · the noon edition, 27 September 2026
- White House restores banned outlets' access under court order, then calls them fake news anyway. By Chip · the coffee break edition, 27 September 2026
The receipts
Attorney General Todd Blanche defended the White House’s reporter ban on Sunday, reiterating that it was implemented for national security purposes. “Well, the president hasn’t denied access, that’s not the right way to describe it,” Blanche said while speaking with Martha Raddatz on ABC News’s This Week.
A federal judge questioned on Wednesday whether the Trump administration can rely on national security concerns to justify barring CNN, MS Now, and Politico from the White House. Could national security reasons “ever be a winner?” U.S.
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.